Friday Feed Update: What did you miss?

Royal De Heus Group enters Indonesian market

Dutch feed company Royal De Heus Group signed a share purchase agreement to acquire 100% of the shares in Universal Agri Bisnisindo, a private Indonesian animal feed company held by a consortium of several private shareholders. The acquisition represents De Heus’ entry in the Indonesian animal feed market and is in line with its strategy to further strengthen its position in the animal feed sector in Asia. The acquisition is expected to close during the 4^th quarter of 2018. With a population of 260 million people, Indonesia is the largest protein consumption market in Southeast Asia and the demand for animal proteins in Indonesia will continue to grow due to rising incomes, population growth and changes in dietary preferences. As a result, it is expected that the size of the animal feed market will further expand from 19 million tonnes to 22 million tonnes by 2022. In 2009, De Heus entered the Southeast Asian market through the acquisition of an animal feed company in Vietnam. 9 years later, De Heus Vietnam has become a top 3 player, with 8 factories strategically spread throughout the country. Besides Vietnam, the company operates 2 feed mills in Myanmar and is constructing a feed mill in Cambodia. Indonesia is now added to this list.

Early bird registration open for World Mycotoxin Forum

Early bird registration is now open for the WMFmeetsIUPAC2019. This joint event of the 11^th Conference of The World Mycotoxin Forum® and the XVth IUPAC International Symposium on Mycotoxins is the world’s largest conference focusing on mycotoxins. The conference offers a unique platform for the food and feed industry, science and regulatory authorities to exchange current knowledge, to promote harmonisation of food and feed safety regulations and control procedures, and to make recommendations for integrated strategies ensuring the safety and security of food and feed supply chains. The event takes place in Belfast, Ireland on 14-16 October, 2019.

Zinpro Corporation to buy 2 companies

Animal nutrition company Zinpro is acquiring Paragon Specialty Products (PSP), LLC, Rainsville, Alabama, and CouvLotta, LLC, Rockport, Texas, USA. Both companies are active in water-soluble-based animal nutrition and nutritional support products. The expected close date for the acquisitions was November 1, 2018. Both PSP and CouvLotta will continue to be based and operated from their current locations with existing management. Prior to acquisition, both companies have been family-owned and privately held, as is Zinpro. Terms and conditions of the agreement remain undisclosed

Proagrica seminars at EuroTier

Proagrica, publisher of All About Feed, Pig Progress, Poultry World and Dairy Global, is organising a range of seminars at the upcoming EuroTier in Hanover, Germany. The seminars are focused on gut health in pig and poultry, advanced dairy farming and advanced pig farming, The events will take place in the room New York 2 at The Exhibition Grounds in Hanover. The events are free, but please register to secure your seat.

Delacon invests in new headquarters

Phytogenic feed additive producer Delacon is investing in a new headquarters in Austria to further spur growth and knowledge. The new location comprises around 13.529 square meters and will provide a work place for up to 100 employees. Moreover, Delacon aims to 5-fold its’ production capacity up to 20,000 tons per year. A fully automated production allows Delacon to achieve the production capacity with the same number of employees.

The new Delacon hub will promote a responsible production and consumption. A photovoltaic system will deliver 100,000 kWh to cover a part of the production needs.

Experts finish course at Swiss Institute of Feed Technology

After an intensive 10 month training period, 18 experts on feed technology have been awarded the diploma from the renowned Swiss Institute of Feed Technology (SFT). Participants from 14 different countries took part in this, the 35^th specialised course. The top student was a participant from Israel. “They now rank among the experts in their field,” says Marcel Scherrer, President of the SFT. The SFT operates as a non-profit association and is recognised as a further education and training establishment by the Association of Swiss Feed Manufacturers (VSF). The SFT provides professionals from the feed industry and related industries with expert knowledge relating to the production of animal feed. Successful completion of the specialist course provides graduates with the capacity to understand all modern processing technologies and processes in a compound feed plant and to apply them appropriately in practice. Up till now, 560 people from 73 countries have successfully completed the course in compound feed technology. The next course in compound feed technology will start in January 2019 in German.

Zheng Chang celebrates 100th anniversary

Jiangsu ZhengChang Group, producer of feed machinery, grain storage equipment and more celebrated its 100^th anniversary in October 2018. This was celebrated by a 5 day event, kicked off on October 15. During the celebration days, the Chinese company welcomed important customers and agents from all over the world, organised an international seminar on the challenges in the global feed industry and visits to the product showroom and manufacturing workshop of ZhengChang Group and Grain engineering and several feed mills.

Unibio partners in waste stream project

Danish company Unibio (producer of microbial protein) and various European-based partners, among these the Municipality of Kalundborg in Denmark, are about to take a giant leap forward in demonstrating how waste materials can be converted into high-value products. The aim is to lay the foundation for a circular economy model that has the potential to be copied by many European municipalities in the years to come. The Horizon 2020 ‘Valuewaste’ project proposes an integrated approach to urban biowaste upcycling for the production of high-value biobased products, developing the first complete solution to fully valorise biowaste that can be replicated across Europe. The consortium will implement 3 new value chains that will use urban biowaste as raw material for its valorization into high-value end-products in a cascading process, generating economic, social and environmental benefits: food and feed proteins, other food and feed ingredients and biobased fertiliser. The project will be developed at 2 very different European locations, Murcia in Spain and Kalundborg in Denmark. The project will run for 4 years.

Evonik to build feed mill for feed trials

Evonik has built a new feed mill in Vietnam, designed to conduct trials with feed pellets. The feed mill, a scientific collaboration between Evonik and Nong Lam University, is dedicated to research trials and provides a valuable resource to foster technological advancement of a more sustainable feed industry in the country. Dr Alfred Petri, Senior Vice President Sales Animal Nutrition at Evonik, said Evonik would work with the university to explore new concepts and feeding technologies for the future needs of the local industry. The feed mill is also open to other companies that wish to test their products.

Biomin selects new yeast strain for FUMzyme®

Any significant step forward in production of a feed additive requires a new EU authorisation complete with its own scientific evaluations of efficacy, specificity and safety. Because animal nutrition company Biomin further developed FUMzyme®, a fumonisin bio-transforming enzyme, it had to authorise the product again. On October 18, this was finalised under Regulation (EU) 2018/1568. Biomin already received EU authorisation of FUMzyme® in swine and poultry. The further development of the product included the selection and development of a new strain of Komagatella (also known as Pichia, DSM 32159) yeast to produce the enzyme more efficiently was the reason for a new registration process.

Clariant to increase prices of all Bentonite-based and Sorbacid® product grades

Clariant, producer of speciality chemicals, announced that their Business Unit Functional Minerals, will increase prices of all Bentonite-based product grades in the EMEA region (Europe, Africa and the Middle-East) by 9%. The price increase will be effective November 1, 2018, or as contracts and prior agreements otherwise allow. This increase is necessary to address continuing inflationary pressures, amongst which, in raw materials and energy costs and the need to secure long-term reinvestment economics. The company will also increase prices of all Sorbacid product grades by 7% for the same reasons.