Adisseo’s new Precise Nutrition Evaluation Service offers the most precise characterization of feedstuffs

For some 15 years, Adisseo has been correlating NIR and in vivo data. The digestibility tests were conducted on pigs and poultry at CERN facilities in France. Amino acids from raw materials and animal feces were analyzed at the Carat laboratory in France which proved essential in determining in-vivo digestibility. As a result of the more than 300 trials performed at CERN, more than 400 equations were developed for use in calibrating measured data.

For nutritionists and feed companies, the results mean ready access to the most precise values on the more costly nutrients in monogastric diets: total and digestible amino acids, metabolizable energy, and total and phytic phosphorus. Each calibration is validated by external samples, fully independent of the initial database.

Excellent repeatability, reproducibility and transferability using some 30 equipment systems worldwide testify to the robustness of the Precise Nutrition Evaluation determinations. The coefficients of variation for all NIR Precise Nutrition Evaluation nutrient tests consistently remain below 2%. With phosphorus determination, the correlation between the reference laboratory analyses and NIR predictions was R2=0.94 for total phosphorus and 0.92 for phytic phosphorus.

Every year, in vivo trials are conducted at CERN for continuous improvement of the database. Raw materials such as soybean and sunflower meals are used along with non-conventional raw material for which huge digestibility variations are observed. Local and rare raw materials on which feed formulators may have little data can also be evaluated.

This allows for more accurate raw material sourcing for feed compounders and a more refined feed formulation matrix. Precise Nutrition Evaluation contributes to improved quality control, especially for raw materials such as DDGS from different geographical origins and processes, which show a great variability in nutrient content and amino acid digestibility. Low-quality samples of raw material with low digestibility of nutrients can be quickly detected.

Precise Nutrition Evaluation both optimizes animal nutrition and growth performance and offers an average saving of up to $2.40 per short ton of feed.