ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE February 2026 75 While precision nutrition relies on accurately defining nutrient requirements, functional nutrition adds a deeper layer by considering how animals utilise nutrients under real production conditions. Gut health, microbiome activity, and environmental stressors all influence nutrient efficiency beyond theoretical models. The focus here is on how functional nutrition strengthens precision feeding strategies and contributes to future developments in monogastric nutrition. The definition of nutrient requirements is the basis of precise nutrition. It allows the definition of the levels of individual nutrients to be fed to animals in order to cover their average needs for maintenance and production (i.e., growth, milk, egg). Total and digestible nutrient requirements are usually estimated, following dose-response trials. Based on the estimation of individual requirements, ratios can be determined by species, breed, and age or live weight range, and they need to be constantly re-evaluated to match the ongoing improvement in genetic potential. Mechanistic models capture interactions between nutrients and describe the dynamic growth response of an average individual under a given feed program, with specific nutrient levels. These models have been widely used in swine and some poultry species. They have proven useful in evaluating commercial feeding program strategies and their impact on performance, and consequently on production cost. An additional level of complexity has been explored to account for population heterogeneity using stochastic models. Although this type of mechanistic model is more complex, it provides a better representation of the growth performance patterns of individuals within a population. While mechanistic models contribute widely to precise nutrition by predicting daily requirements, it is also recognised that animals rarely respond exactly according to model predictions. Environmental factors play a key role in phenotypic response, including diet profile, ambient and sanitary conditions, immune status, and others. Nutritional strategies also vary across countries due to differences in genetics, ingredient profiles, production systems, and feed additives. Under these varying conditions, the study of functional nutrition has become critical to accurately estimate requirements and optimise performance and production cost. The term “functional nutrition” refers to nutrient utilisation dynamics, and to how nutrient and ingreUNDERSTANDING FUNCTIONAL NUTRITION TO SUPPORT PRECISION NUTRITION Dr. Virginie Blanvillain Global Services Manager AB Vista
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