Special Story

As part of the feed industry, organic trace elements have a lot of challenges to face. In the end, they play an important role in sustainability as they can help in reducing the environmental footprint and producing better quality products. These attributes support public health regulations for the end consumer, and they also preserve the welfare of workers...

The global pet food market value is estimated at $100 billion as of 2019, and is expected to continue to grow. GAPFA, the Global Alliance of Pet Food Associations, represents 13 pet food associations from all corners of the world and three global pet food manufacturers. In the lead up to the pandemic, these individual associations reported that humanisation and premiumisation were accelerating at a rapid rate, resulting in continued growth.

The natural pet food trend started 25 years ago in the U.S. and has continued to expand globally. Throughout the world premium pet foods have become synonymous with the concept of being “natural” and there has been noteworthy acceleration of this in Europe recently. A significant part of this trend has been the development of natural antioxidant alternatives to help pet food companies maintain the shelf-life of their pet foods and to preserve pet’s health.

As they make decisions regarding animal feed formulation and production, animal nutritionists, feed formulators, and quality control professionals must address fluctuations in nutrient profiles, quality parameters and commodity prices. MyNutriOpt, the gateway to NutriOpt’s digital suite of solutions and services, delivers real-time information to support collaboration and efficient, informed decision making across the value chain. The system brings together multiple data sets into an easy-to-access resource that can help drive decisions regarding feed formulation, production economics and supplier management.

These events are a stark reminder that for global agriculture climate change impacts are already a reality. High feed costs are an enormous challenge for the whole agricultural sector and sustainable strategies need to be adopted to enable a more efficient use of resources, both in the short and long term. This article explores possibilities to cope with the current situation. Through understanding the positions of farmers, integrators and feed millers and using targeted feed additive solutions, we can achieve a responsible use of resources that makes animal production more resilient to feed price increases.

Enzymes have long been recognised as a way to reduce environmental impact, improve animal performance, and lower the cost of feed. In general, the use of exogenous enzymes in animal nutrition has been fundamentally based on the destruction of antinutritive compounds, which increases the digestibility of nutrients and improves productive yields. This article discusses new enzyme application strategies to maximize feed cost savings, mitigate phosphorus excretion, and reduce carbon emissions.

After the decision to ban the medicinal use of zinc oxide in piglet diets, feed formulators are seeking feed ingredients and additives which can reduce the risk of digestive disorders in critical phases like the post-weaning period. Specific potentiated form of zinc oxide can be used in premixes...

Traditional methods of controlling post-weaning diarrhoea have been using zinc oxide at high doses (2500-3000mg/kg feed) together with antibiotics. While there are many benefits of using zinc oxide linked to improving gut health, there are more negative effects such as increasing antibiotics resistance, encouraging the selection...

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) time is running out. Rational use of antibiotics and growth promoters moves the focus from pharmacology to functional ingredients. Spray dried plasma and egg powder are successfully used as excellent nutritional ingredients, preventing post-weaning diarrhea, improving...

There is not one single product that can replace the current use of Zinc Oxide. A ZnO free pig production requires improvements in many fields that include farm management, biosecurity, genetics, the health status of the pig and diet composition. Fiber can become a vital part of ZnO free piglet diets.