MyFeedPrint backs sustainability decisions at GLW Feeds

NutriOpt
Sustainability

Reducing the environmental footprint of feed requires careful calculations to inform lower-impact buying decisions. But the specific knowledge of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology that is required to make these choices is often not easily available to animal nutritionists. MyFeedPrint, Trouw Nutrition’s new LCA service for feed mills, can help. To find out more, we talked to Jess Marshall, Ruminant Nutritionist at GLW Feeds Ltd, an early adopter of the service.

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20/12/2022

GLW Feeds is a family-owned feed mill in the UK, producing around 240,000 tonnes of feed per year (for ruminants, pigs and poultry) in one facility. When it comes to feed, farm support and sustainability, they take a pragmatic, agile and forward-thinking approach. “As a feed company, our aim is always to produce compound feeds that are economically viable and good for the animal, to help increase animal productivity, efficiency and farm profitability,” explains Jess. “But we also understand that animal feed makes a major contribution to the total emissions of animal-based food production. At GLW Feeds, we want to make sustainability a priority. In practice, this means that, as well as price and nutritional value, we now consider an extra matrix when planning our feed formulations: the environmental footprint of our raw materials. Reducing the environmental impact of feed production brings a range of opportunities for us – while also supporting our customers as they work towards climate-smart farming and compliance with current and future sustainability schemes and regulations.”

Buying raw materials is a complex business. MyFeedPrint helps to make the right decisions.
Up to 50% reduction in carbon footprint has been achieved in some of GLW Feeds’ dairy rations.
MyFeedPrint ticks all the boxes: in just a few clicks, I can calculate and easily understand the environmental footprint of individual raw materials, as well as the impact of feed processing, so we can calculate the overall environmental footprint of the finished feed.
Jess Marshall, Ruminant Nutritionist at GLW Feeds Ltd, UK

A fact-based foundation for confident decision making

Reducing the environmental impact of feed starts with the numbers. The “carbon footprint” of feed products is expressed in kg of CO2 equivalents (CO2e), per tonne of feed or kg of meat or milk, for instance. Since June 2022, GLW Feeds has been using MyFeedPrint, an easy-to-use, web-based life cycle assessment (LCA) service, developed by Trouw Nutrition, to retrieve these important figures for the raw materials that go into their feed formulations. “We needed trustworthy data, with the ability to extract the information to use in our own feed formulation software,” continues Jess. “MyFeedPrint ticks all the boxes: in just a few clicks, I can calculate and easily understand the environmental footprint of individual raw materials, as well as the impact of feed processing, so we can calculate the overall environmental footprint of the finished feed. All the calculations are based on certified environmental databases, which are updated regularly. This gives me confidence that the calculations are accurate and that the decisions we make are sound because they’re backed up by hard data.”

Measuring the impact of more sustainable ingredients

GLW Feeds already had a close working relationship with Trouw Nutrition, so when MyFeedPrint was ready to launch its testing phase in early 2022, it was an excellent opportunity to get Jess and her team on board. “The timing was great, as we were in the process of exploring several different LCA tools to reduce the environmental impact of our operations. However, we couldn’t find a tool that met our exact requirements,” says Jess. “When Trouw Nutrition took us through the ins and outs of the MyFeedPrint tool, we were immediately impressed by how simple and intuitive it was, and we were eager to start using it. Being family-owned and producing all our feed in one location, we were able to move quickly, meaning we were one of the first feed companies to implement the tool.”

While GLW Feeds only working with MyFeedPrint this year, they had already been in the process of reviewing their raw material buying strategy for some time, as Jess explains: “Partly due to market disruptions and limited ingredient availability, but also in line with the strong sustainability mission of GLW Feeds, we made the important decision to purchase sustainably sourced soy, and we made changes to our maize sourcing. We are also currently looking at our liquid fat supply with a view to going palm oil free. The environmental benefits of all these decisions can now be backed up by MyFeedPrint data: in a few clicks, we can see the environmental footprint of any ingredients that we might choose to use. This way, we can be sure that any ingredients we’re considering have a reduced environmental impact, are commercially viable and have the desired nutritional profile. It really is ideal!”

In a few clicks, we can see the environmental footprint of any ingredients that we might choose to use. This way, we can be sure that any ingredients we’re considering have a reduced environmental impact, are commercially viable and have the desired nutritional profile. It really is ideal!
Jess Marshall, Ruminant Nutritionist at GLW Feeds Ltd, UK

Achieving a 50% reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions

The data from MyFeedPrint is now an integral part of the business and an essential input for the quarterly meetings at GLW Feeds, where management, nutritionists, and the procurement team review buying decisions. “Having this tool allows us to pinpoint the major emissions hotspots and look for effective and viable alternative options. For example, when we took the major decision to change the sourcing of our soy, MyFeedPrint let us precisely measure the resulting reduction in the carbon footprint of our compound feed. This reached up to 50% in some of our dairy rations”, explains Jess. “In 2023, we aim to further reduce the carbon footprint of our feeds while also working on the optimisation of our feed mill’s operations.

While the carbon footprint of the raw materials we use is by far the biggest contributor to the environmental impact figure of the compound feed we produce, the feed processing itself is also an important consideration. Feed mills are historically heavy users of energy. That’s why, at GLW Feeds, we have already made significant investments to reduce our power consumption and increase the efficiency of our facilities. This has the dual benefit of reducing our energy bills as well as the overall environmental impact of our feed products. MyFeedPrint takes care of all the necessary calculations and determines the footprint of the different production lines, as well as calculating an average carbon footprint value for our entire facility.”

GLW Feeds produces its feed on one location and successfully implemented MyFeedPrint in 2022.

Taking the lead to make a tangible impact


“With MyFeedPrint, we now have a tool to create a complete picture of the environmental impact of our feed products, allowing us to formulate products with feed costs, animal performance and environmental footprint in mind. It is an essential step forwards, especially as an increasing number of farmers seek to meet their buyers’ current and future requirements on sustainability”, concludes Jess. “But more work still needs to be done. A lot of the focus tends to be on dairy, because of the publicity surrounding methane emissions in the sector. However, there are also big wins possible in the pig and poultry sectors. We are already actively working with our dairy farmers, but we are also engaging with our poultry and pig farmers about this topic.

The MyFeedPrint reports are a great help in initiating these important conversations. They allow us to give customers an easily understandable figure to work with. This is an enormous help in getting the message across. And it also demonstrates that a wide range of factors other than the carbon footprint of the raw materials themselves also impact the overall environmental footprint of animal products. These factors include feed efficiency, animal longevity and animal productivity. In the end, it’s about using all the available figures to make environmental impact measurements simpler for our customers to understand – and showing that we can all make decisions to improve the sustainability of our operations. MyFeedPrint is a key way in which we’re taking the lead in feed sustainability and supporting our farmers by providing sustainable feed and formulation services, to meet both productivity and sustainability goals. I hope our strategy will inspire more feed mills and farmers to start producing and using more sustainable formulations, with MyFeedPrint as a key part of this transition.”