Our first report on the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on feed additive supply generated a huge amount of traffic. It was the most popular story in January.
The article was based on a survey that global trading platform, Kemiex, underook with some 97 professional buyers, traders and producers of feed and food additives.
Of those, 35 respondents or 36% expected a high, and 50 respondents or 51% of those polled expected a low impact of the coronavirus on ingredient supply.
There was a massive reaction to our piece on Dutch animal nutrition and fish feed group, Nutreco, reporting a strategic partnership with Mosa Meat, the company behind the world’s first cell-based or cultivated hamburger.
“As the global population continues to grow, the increased demand for protein will place more pressure on our food production system. If we are serious about feeding the future in a sustainable way, we will need to produce protein from a variety of sources, including animal agriculture as well as alternative proteins,” said Nutreco CEO, Rob Koremans, on the rationale behind the alliance.
Lowercarbon Capital, a new US-based venture capital fund led by Chris Sacca, also invested in the cultured meat producer; that fund backs technologies that have the potential to ‘heal the planet’, ones that can have a positive impact on climate change.
There was a lot of interest in our story about how Nestlé had stopped buying Cargill’s Brazilian soy because of concerns over deforestation, originally reported in the Wall Street Journal.
We asked the world's largest food and beverage company to comment.
A Nestlé spokesperson told us: “We stopped sourcing soy from Brazil from Cargill in May 2019. This was because of its inability to deliver traceable soy and because of recent changes in its policy regarding deforestation in Brazil."
He said that, over the past 10 years, Nestlé has been leading the way in its efforts to end deforestation across its supply chain.
A story on market analysis forecasting that the global black soldier fly market will grow at a CAGR of 33.3% from 2019 to 2030 to reach US$2.57bn was our fourth most popular piece last month.
The market analysis was undertaken by Meticulous Research.
Based on product, the global BSF market is segmented into protein meal, biofertilizer (frass), whole dried larvae, larvae oil, and chitin and chitosan. BSF derived products are marketed to the feed, agriculture, pet food, and other segments, said the analysts.
In terms of value, the researchers found that protein meal commanded the largest share of the overall BSF market in 2019. However, in terms of volume, the biofertilizers (frass) segment took the spoils last year, and the report attributed that percentage squeeze to the fact that a large quantity of fertilizer is generated during the BSF processing compared to protein meal and oil.
Feed use of BSF derived products is predicted to see rapid growth during the forecast period, they added.
A week after Nutreco announced it was collaborating with cellular meat pioneer, Mosa Meat, it revealed a strategic partnership with US cell-based seafood startup, BlueNalu.
We spoke to Nutreco CEO, Rob Koremans, to hear more about the company’s rationale for supporting cultured meat and seafood innovators, and longer-term goals for the business. The story proved captivating for our readership.
In our sixth most read story in January 2020, Cargill moved to clarify what its current trading relationship is with Nestlé, following the report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the leading food and beverage company had stopped buying Cargill’s Brazilian soy because of concerns about the link to deforestation.
The Minnesota headquartered agribusiness giant said Nestlé remains a major customer. “They simply moved their sourcing from Brazil,” a spokesperson for Cargill told us.
The spokesperson said Cargill is fully committed to ending deforestation in its supply chains. “Currently, we are able to meet our customers’ needs by offering fully sustainable soy supplies from multiple locations.”
At the end of December 2019, Cargill published its latest progress report on sustainable soy in Brazil, with a specific focus on forests, said the representative.
A story about how Finnish researchers are using industrial side streams – from the forestry sector or the bioethanol industry - that contain renewable carbon sources to produce Pekilo mycoprotein, a form of single cell protein (SCP) derived from fungi, was our seventh most read story last month.
This SCP is touted as a sustainable alternative to fishmeal and soy protein concentrate in fish feed.
The experts involved are part of a biotech venture called Enifer Bio, which began life in the startup incubator, Launchpad, run by Finnish technical research organization, VTT.
Finland and some other countries have long history using Pekilo protein in poultry and pig feed.
“Actually, the Finnish Pekilo based process is the longest running single cell production method for feed protein in the world,” Heikki Keskitalo, CTO, Enifer Bio, told us. He has spent years studying the Pekilo process.
A piece on the insights generated by Alltech's 2020 Global Feed Survey proved popular.
The report showed a decline in the world's feed output for the first time in nine years. It estimated that international feed tonnage decreased by 1.07% to 1.126 billion metric last year. The decline was caused largely by African swine fever (ASF) and the decline of pig feed in the Asia-Pacific region, said Alltech.
The top nine feed-producing countries are the US, China, Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico, Spain, Japan and Germany, found the survey. Together, these countries produce 58% of the world’s feed production and contain 57% of the world’s feed mills, and they can be viewed as an indicator of overall trends in agriculture, said Alltech.
A report we ran on feed manufacturer, Danish Agro, trialing Unibio’s single cell protein (SCP), Uniprotein, in pig diets was our ninth most read story in January.
Arne Ringsing, product manager, Danish Agro, sees Uniprotein as a promising efficient, sustainable protein source with a favorable nutrition profile. “We have already begun the first palatability trials involving piglets of different ages.”
That trial work is part of a Danish research project, funded to the tune of €1.3m by the Green Development and Demonstration Program, an initiative run by the Danish Ministry for Food, Fisheries, Equal Opportunities and Nordic Cooperation. The goal is to validate and optimize the nutritional and functional properties of Uniprotein when used in feed for salmonids and piglets.
Pig trials will be ongoing this year and are set to terminate in 2021, Ringsing told us.
There was a lot of interest in an interview we did with Michael Nielsen, a Danish farmer producing 27,000 piglets/year in his farm.
He will be speaking at FeedNavigator’s conference, Young Animal Nutrition 2020, in Amsterdam in March about piglet productivity, low medication use, and pig farming challenges in Denmark.
Ensuring high levels of animal welfare is a key component of production at his farm, Tilsbaek. There is no tail docking, and the piglets have an extended weaning age, at least four weeks of age, while sows are kept in 100% loose housing.
He looks to avoid diarrhea around weaning and, thus, limit antibiotic use. “When we start off piglets, we use ‘soft’ proteins like a lot of fishmeal and milk powder.”
While still including zinc oxide (ZnO) in post-weaning formulations, the inclusion level is 1250 ppm ZnO or 50% of the maximum dosage allowed. Nielsen is looking to reduce ZnO inclusion levels gradually, going to a further 50% reduction again “very soon.”
