Preparing economical and nutritious feed formulations with MyNutriOpt

Wiebren Santema, Trouw Nutrition Global Product Market Manager

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.

New technologies make it more efficient and practical to produce economical feed formulations without compromising the nutritional content of feed or the production performance of farm animals. NutriOpt, developed by Trouw Nutrition, leverages digital technologies to provide farmers, feed mills, integrators and consultants with efficient, real-time solutions to tailor feed formulations for different animal species and needs. NutriOpt’s digital suite of solutions and services are available via the web-based feed management tool: MyNutriOpt.

Managing feed costs is a critical priority for farmers around the world. Successful livestock production requires accurately meeting the nutritional needs of animals to maintain their performance, while keeping costs under control. In addition, the needs of each animal vary depending on the species, age and production environment. Efficient handling of so many parameters is now much more practical thanks to the new tools offered.

NutriOpt, developed by Trouw Nutrition, contains these valuable tools. Available to farmers, feed mills, integrators and consultants, this set of digital solutions combines multiple services to create the right feed formulations.

What solutions does NutriOpt offer to users and how are they used? And what is MyNutriOpt? We got the answers to these and many other questions from Wiebren Santema, Trouw Nutrition Global Product Manager.

Mr. Santema, first of all, could you tell us about NutriOpt? What is NutriOpt and by whom and for what purposes can it be used?
Part of Trouw Nutrition, a Nutreco company, NutriOpt is a suite of digital integrated solutions and services that can be practically applied by farmers, feed mills, integrators and consultants around the globe. NutriOpt’s technologies are founded on Trouw Nutrition’s research and development and help customers use data to drive feed formulation, feed manufacturing and animal nutrition decisions for optimal animal performance and business success.

What are the services/solutions included in NutriOpt and how do they benefit users in the animal nutrition industry?
NutriOpt services can be grouped into four solution areas. First, we capture accurate data regarding feed raw materials. Rapid analysis tools such as NIR technology and the NutriOpt Mycomaster enable efficient screening of feed ingredients to assess nutritional content as well as mycotoxin levels. For example, we have a large NIR calibration portfolio containing more than 50 raw materials and finished feed products. This technology provides you with rapid, accurate results. Quality control parameters for soybean meals, rapeseed meals and many other feed ingredients are integrated into the system. Technologies are adding new data to the system – such as content on crude protein and crude fiber levels. The benefit is that a higher level of precision can be applied to feed formulation.

The second NutriOpt solution area focuses on delivering the best nutritional insights to drive decisions. To accomplish this, the analyzed values of ingredients are connected in real-time to the Trouw Nutrition nutritional database. This allows nutritionists to see the full nutritional profile including calculated nutritional values of ingredients. All data is brought into a profile the formulator can use to optimize diets. A fully automated approach means that with just a few clicks, animal nutrition professionals can have all of the data in their hands at any time.

“Trouw Nutrition recently introduced a new proprietary portal, MyNutriOpt that acts as a gateway allowing customers to access NutriOpt services. Animal nutrition professionals such as nutritionists, formulators and quality control managers can be assigned a profile and authorized to access various areas of the system such as animal models, NIR data, etc. “

The third solution area is the delivery of least cost formulation services for ruminants, poultry and swine and feeding strategies. For example, split-feeding programs for poultry focus on feeding different diets in the morning and evening to optimize birds’ digestion of key nutrients. For swine, we have a new technology that leverages the kinetics of fermented fiber to support the animal’s needs at different life phases.

The fourth NutriOpt area focuses on models for dairy, broilers and swine to optimize feeding and production. For example, the Watson swine model is a proprietary swine feeding model that allows Trouw Nutrition customers to evaluate different feeding programs based on different scenarios such as market conditions and costs. This modeling approach allows you to achieve the most economic formulation to meet a desired kilogram of gain without increasing days to market.

Who uses the services offered in NutriOpt and how are these services accessed?
Trouw Nutrition recently introduced a new proprietary portal, MyNutriOpt that acts as a gateway allowing customers to access NutriOpt services. Animal nutrition professionals such as nutritionists, formulators and quality control managers can be assigned a profile and authorized to access various areas of the system such as animal models, NIR data, etc. The user-friendly system was designed from scratch and based on input from animal nutrition professionals in the field – including feed formulation companies, feed mills and farmers. One of the most common concerns is a lack of time to consolidate and make sense of multiple data resources. They were looking for a solution that was efficient to access and easy to use, allowing them to save time and support accurate, timely decision making. The program is very intuitive as evidenced by the high scores we received from customers asked to evaluate the system’s ease of use. MyNutriOpt is available in more than 12 different languages to support professionals around the globe.

“The market is becoming more complex and there is an increase in raw materials on the market. This complex situation presents an opportunity to apply technology to optimize feed safety and quality while effectively managing economics. MyNutriOpt puts essential data including nutritional profiles of feed ingredients into the hands of experts like quality managers and nutritionists, saving time and streamlining the processes used to drive decisions.”

Why is feed analysis so important? What should MyNutriOpt’s solutions for feed analysis mean for farmers or feed mills and what benefits do these solutions provide to users/businesses?
The market is becoming more complex and there is an increase in raw materials on the market. This complex situation presents an opportunity to apply technology to optimize feed safety and quality while effectively managing economics. MyNutriOpt puts essential data including nutritional profiles of feed ingredients into the hands of experts like quality managers and nutritionists, saving time and streamlining the processes used to drive decisions.

Feed costs have always been an important issue. How does MyNutriOpt contribute to reducing or controlling feed costs?
Our goal is to apply the data from Trouw Nutrition’s nutritional database to inform a precision formulation that economically achieves nutrition and production objectives. Efficient feeding requires many considerations, such as waste and supplier decisions. For example, if formulators can tailor diets to achieve desired performance and growth results while significantly reducing the amount of wasted nutrients, the dietary strategy will be more economical. Avoiding over-formulating is a significant issue we try to help customers avoid when developing diets.

MyNutriOpt can help quality control managers support their supplier management activities as well as the nutritional quality of their formulations. If the system indicates suppliers are not delivering the right quality of materials, the data can serve as a trigger for supplier discussions. Data standards built into the MyNutriOpt system allow companies to define ranges for acceptable nutritional values. You can establish green, orange and red thresholds, and MyNutriOpt will indicate the color-coded category for a particular ingredient.

Immediate access to the data means feed millers may update their nutritional matrixes more quickly. Because the data is always available, it can provide real-time insights and you do not have to make decisions based on data that is weeks or even months old.

What does MyNutriOpt promise in terms of operational efficiency?
Once you scan a sample from a NIR device, the data appears in the portal immediately. No manual steps are required and you do not have to wait for someone else to upload the data. Historically, the market has lacked a consolidated, easy to use tool for stakeholders throughout an organization to access and apply data. A gap between data collection and its availability to users made it challenging to quickly identify and act upon trends. And because different departments or people “owned” specific areas of data, collaboration between managers, nutritionists and formulators could be difficult. By breaking down these barriers to data access and providing timely, comprehensive data across the animal nutrition experts, MyNutriOpt supports collaboration and efficient decisions.

As the system is accessed via the Internet, you can work from anywhere and access the data immediately any time of day or night. Instantaneous access to timely, comprehensive data to drive insights is really the essence of MyNutriOpt. At the end of the day, the technology supports collaboration across the enterprise, and informs proactive, data-driven decisions.