Feed represents the single-largest cost factor in producing animal protein. The challenge is to formulate a cost-efficient diet that fulfils the livestock’s nutritional needs. Screening and monitoring of incoming raw materials for feed formulation are critical steps to allow global feed millers achieve that objective, says the developer.
AMINODat 6.0 enables farmed animal feeds to be formulated with even greater precision, said the German firm. In simple terms, the tool is designed to quick feedback on the amino acid content of animal diets.
However, in addition to the amino acid and proximate content of raw materials, the company said the AMINODat 6.0 platform also provides a complete set of amino acid digestibility coefficients. “These have now been updated and extended by Evonik’s experts.”
Another new feature of the tool is fatty acid profiling of raw materials. The platform also enables analysis of quality parameters like antinutritional factors, protein solubility and content of reactive lysine, indicators of the degree of heat processing, and it allows analysis of biogenic amines that play an important role in the evaluation of animal byproducts and silages.
The updated database also includes the most up to date amino acid recommendations for animals within poultry, swine and aquaculture production systems.
Raw material qualities are highly variable due to different growing, drying and storage conditions, said Dr Markus Wiltafsky-Martin, who is responsible for service development at Evonik Animal Nutrition. "All these factors vary not only from season to season, but also from region to region. That's why we don't report only global averages, but country-specific values."
The analyses are based on raw material samples that Evonik receives from customers all over the world. AMINODat 6.0 comprises more than 900,000 analytical results from over 18,000 samples of more than 500 raw materials.
Evonik will be presenting the latest version of the tool at the China Feed Expo in Chongqing from April 18-20.
E-shopping
Evonik has also been looking to bolster its e-business in animal nutrition of late.
Last November, it expanded its customer service offering for its animal nutrition customers with a new e-business portal called myAMINO, which it described as an important milestone in its digitalization strategy to strengthen its animal nutrition division.
The idea of the e-business portal is to be the first digital point of contact for customers, it will make interaction with Evonik as easy and efficient as possible, said the company.
“Fostering e-business is one of our main strategic goals,” Dr Dirk Hoehler, head of sales and e-business in the animal nutrition business line, said back then. “We want to make it as convenient as possible for our customers to contact us, find relevant information and process their orders”.
The online shopping on myAMINO allows customers to search Evonik’s core portfolio, for products like its DL-Methionine brand, MetAMINO, by various categories, for example by type of packaging or animal species. Users can also order complementary products and services, such as laboratory equipment for amino acid analysis, online.