Dr Eckel wins AllAboutFeed FIAAP Nutrition Award

Real innovations are scarce in animal nutrition since most products are improvements of already existing nutritional items.

 

In this first try six entries were welcomed. Since the products had to be introduced to the market after 1 January 2010 one entry had to be disqualified, because it was already on the market for four years.

 

The entries that participated were:

·         Near Infrared analyser NIRMaster Pro IP 65 (Buchi Labortechnik, Switzerland),

·         customized natural plant extracts AntaPhyt MO (Dr. Eckel, Germany),

·         sodium benzoate additive Protural (Kemira, Singapore),

·         pellet quality enhancer Seal4Feed (PLP Liquid Systems, Italy),

·         essential oils blend GrowNat (AWP, Italy) and

·         microbial Lysozyme (Li Feng Industry and Trading, China, but disqualified).

 

The entries were judged by three independent jurors:

·         Ioannis Mavromichalis (Ariston Nutrition, Spain),

·         Hinner Koster (Animate Animal Health, South Africa) and

·         David Meisinger (Iowa State University, USA).

 

Adding up the points of these three specialists the final winner was AntaPhyt MO from Dr Eckel.

 

In general the jurors were not extreme enthusiastic about the level of innovation, but they also know that innovation in nutrition is not easy.

 

AnthPhyt MO contains a customised blend of natural plant extracts, herbs, spices and Arabic gum, aimed at boosting feed intake, supporting a healthy gut flora and even encourage good development of intestinal villi.

 

These ingredients consist of alkaloids which are effective antidiarrhoeals and sedatives, flavanoides known as highly potential radical scavengers, bitter components which act appetising, the same as allines which furthermore act antidyspeptic, antimycotic and have insecticidal properties and some tannins to superficially seal tissues and make mucous membranes impermeable for pathogens.

 

A quote from the jury report said: “The rest of the products (besides AntaPhyt MO), may contribute to the market, but are not really great new innovations and therefore not novel.

 

“Similar products and applications already exist and therefore would regard these more as copies of existing technologies or ideas, just with some small differences to them.

 

“Whether they will necessarily perform better than existing products in their categories still has to be seen.

 

“The AntaPhyt MO though required more innovative inputs and broader knowledge of a variety of existing concepts (e.g. unique secondary plant compounds) to successfully combine this into the development of the final product. Therefore it provides some kind of novelness, which we miss within the rest of the products.”