Sano continues leading supplementary feed market

Sano was established in 1976 by founder Bernard Waldinger in Grafenwald in the south of Germany. He was unsatisfied with the feeds he had to sell, which he thought could be improved, so he started his own company in supplementary feeds.

 

Today Bernard’s son Richard and his wife Dagmar run the company. Production has spread out to other countries and areas and so has sales.

 

When the borders opened in 1989 Sano took over the leadership in East Germany and it has held this until today. In 1999, a plant in Poland was opened. "We were very lucky to have made this step," says Richard Waldinger.

 

From there expansion continued: Sano started in 2003 in Croatia, 2004 in Serbia, 2005 in Bosnia since 2007, there is Sano Hungary.

 

"In over 20 countries, we wholly owned with sister companies,” says Waldinger. "Since September we have a company registration in China”.

 

Richard Waldinger flies to China once every four weeks to open up a market that in many places still is at a stand, as in Germany between 1950 and 1960.

 

Sano also has sales offices established in 2009 in Bulgaria and Russia. Furthermore the Grafenwalder company is eyeing India and South America as potential growth markets.

 

Sano employs 600 people in total. And there will be more. A network of 150 specialist consultants is to be built in Germany.

 

This year alone, 30 new consultants came to the Sano-Academy to be trained and recruited. Here Sano searches for people with agricultural and economic education. Sano also trains apprentices in the commercial and IT sector.

 

Despite the financial crisis for Sano 2009 was a good year. With €350 million turnover, of which 20% were generated in Germany and 400,000 tonnes of mineral feed and milk replacer for cattle and pigs were shipped.

 

Feeding animals healthy and profitable, is the company’s philosophy. "With the diet, we can influence 80 percent of the diseases,” Richard Waldinger says.

 

The managing partner of the modern animal nutrition Sano does away with a mistake, which he often encounters: Sano produces no feed, no concentrates. Rather, Sano deals with supplementary feeds.

 

Sano suppilies supplementary feeds for cows to give more milk, have healthy hooves, pigs to avoid growth depressions and more. Farmers normally add 2 to 5% of these mineral feeds to the regular feed for their animals.