How MyNutriOpt improves efficiency and agility at Agthia Group

How we deal with quality deviations in the current pandemic

The feed company has 2 mills, one for the production of small animal feed (poultry) and one for large animals (ruminants). The raw materials are sourced mainly from the Black sea region, South America, US and Australia. Dr. Andonov explains: “Raw material procurement and the production of cost effective and accurate animal diets is a complex business. Our quality specifications and procurement procedures are quite strict and we rarely face serious quality issues. However, natural circumstances such as the weather or unforeseen issues such as delays in shipments because of strikes and availability and logistic problems due to the current pandemic means that we have to adapt to different quality specifications and origins than we used before.” Because they deal with more suppliers, Dr. Andonov sees more deviations in raw material quality. It has become more common to take more samples during the process and always ask for pre-shipment samples to make sure the procured feed ingredients meet the company's specifications.

A leaner and simplified process helps us gather consistent insights

Dealing with different raw materials from different regions and companies can be complicated and many feed mills recognize this constant challenge. “To deal with this, it is pivotal to have the data and insights on the consistency in quality of batches readily available when we need it”, Dr. Andonov addresses. This is the reason why the Agthia Group decided to start using the NIR services for feed analysis and other NutriOpt solutions from Trouw Nutrition. The NIR data is managed in MyNutriOpt, an online portal that is connected with feed analysis equipment. The results are automatically synchronised and real-time shown in the MyNutriOpt portal and hence accessible for all people that need to work with the data, such as quality assurance and control (QA/QC), nutritionists and procurement. Dr. Andonov praises the efficiency gains and speed since working with MyNutriOpt. “I don't have to call the QA/QC lab anymore or wait for the weekly or monthly lab reports to gain insights in the feed analysis data. It's all with me already because I simply have to login to the portal. This makes the processes for all departments leaner and more simplified”.

Better overview and accessibility of data makes our work processes more efficient

The animal feed business of the Agthia Group employs 121 people. “To work with challenging conditions, you need good communication and efficient work processes. We need to be flexible and well informed to make the right decisions, This is especially the case when we have shortages of certain raw materials. We need to quickly decide which direction we take, if we need more of a certain raw material or less, and from which region”, Dr. Andonov addresses. The overall QA/QC process is much easier and quicker at the Agthia group since the introduction of MyNutriOpt. Dr. Andonov: “We do more sampling now than ever before and with MyNutriOpt we can also make use of all the data, simply because we have a better overview and accessibility. This has definitely improved the workflow in our company, reflected in optimised reporting and testing plan processes at QA/QC, more accurate diets and less manual calculations for the formulation department and better decision making, price setting and supplier management for procurement. With MyNutriOpt we have the data from pre-shipments samples already and can easily compare the documented and promised feed quality with the actual samples and hence can better determine the real costs of the raw materials”.

Detecting quality issues earlier

As the Senior R&D Manager Feed, Dr. Andonov and his team are responsible for feed formulation and technical support and use MyNutriOpt daily. “We use routine sampling of the raw materials and the great thing about MyNutriOpt is the ability to create batches of a certain raw material to monitor overall consistency or contaminations over time, instead of relying on the data from individual samples. This is very important for stored materials. They may look fine when they come in and you expect homogeneity of the material, but the quality can change when they are stored or the batch can have other (unwanted) material in. The other day, we saw that a batch of soybean meal was losing quality in storage. We were able to detect this quite quickly, because of the amount of data points we had for this batch and the clear visualisation of the data in MyNutriOpt. When delving deeper into the possible causes of the problem, we found out that the raw materials did not get proper heat treatment at the supplier, reflected in outliers of trypsin inhibitor (an anti-nutritional factor). We then removed the low quality batch from the rest”, Dr. Andonov explains.

Taking the manual work out saves us valuable time

When it comes to feed formulation and updating feed matrices, Dr. Andonov really sees the benefits of using MyNutriOpt. “In the past, I was manually calculating all the amino acids and metabolizable energy estimations based on the proximate analysis. This is not only a lengthy process, it is also prone to errors. Now we are working with the concrete proximate analysis data from NIR and in MyNutriOpt, the other parameters / additional data are calculated automatically for me”. For Dr. Andonov, these extra data, such as all digestible amino acid values, are crucial to formulate diets that come as close to the animal’s requirements as possible. Also feed matrices can be updated more often, because of the better insights in the deviations of the raw materials. Dr. Andonov: “With MyNutriOpt we added speed and precision to our work. By working with this convenient prediction and ultimately decision making tool, we have more accurate data on feedstuffs composition which is crucial to animal nutrition, productivity and profitability. With MyNutriOpt we keep the variation of our final products under control, unaffected by the variation in the individual RMs, and the proof of our accurate diets is in the field when the animals perform the way we predicted or even better. In the end, the animal is the best lab on its own”.

“When you can rely on your common suppliers you don't have issues. But the market is changing and we have to adapt. We therefore need a tool such as MyNutriOpt more than ever. For our company it provides the functionalities and data that we need to improve operational efficiency, flexibility and agility. I would definitely recommend it to other feed companies. The market is changing, but with the right tools and workflow we can manage it", Dr. Andonov concludes.