Could you introduce Trouw [Trɑʊ] to our international audience?

Trouw Nutrition is part of Nutreco, one of the top 10 feed manufacturers in the world. Trouw Nutrition Asia Pacific Export is a specialty business within animal nutrition and deals with feed additives and young animal feeds, concentrating on solutions such as unique blends of buffered- and non-buffered organic acids that can be applied in the feed for gut health and digestion improvement, as well as organic acids used in feed safety (anti-salmonella, anti-mold, anti-toxins). We also supply a range of trace minerals under the brand name of Optimin, which is our organic trace minerals, and IntelliBond, our unique hydroxy trace minerals.

In Asia, we separate operations and leadership structures depending on whether we have local facilities in a country or not. Countries with local production like Vietnam, China, India, Indonesia, and Japan, are managed by locally based teams, but the rest of the countries (Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Taiwan, Laos, Cambodia, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand) represent our export business, and these are managed from our regional office in Bangkok, which serves as a backbone for finance, customer service, logistics, and technical/nutrition teams.

Could you elaborate on Trouw’s service capabilities?

Trouw is quite unique because most of the products and the solutions we have available were developed for Nutreco itself. In some countries Trouw is integrated across the full value chain, and this allows us to test our products first on ourselves using in-house formulation and testing capabilities, which we also offer as a service to our customers. We developed models and calibrations between the software and the hardware to understand the effect that each specific raw material has on the animal, and we offer on-site testing equipment for customers who require rapid testing.

How has Trouw Nutrition performed in the last financial year and what are the main trends you observe today?

2022 was a challenging year for the entire industry, inflation putting a damper on the entire value chain and ultimately reflecting in higher retail prices for food products. This year, the market seems to be stabilizing, as lower freight rates and energy prices have alleviated some of the cost pressures in the supply chain. We had a stable 2022, but not in line with our growth expectations. We have seen growth returning strongly in 2023 and we hope this continues throughout the year. The major theme over the past year has been on cost-value, but this year, we see a change; while costs remain a main contention point, we also note greater attention paid to sustainability and precision nutrition.

Could you give some examples that illustrate how your products support your customers’ sustainability goals?

Due to higher bioavailability (or the ability to be absorbed better by the animal), Intellibondhydroxy trace minerals create the same effect or better compared to other trace minerals at a lower dose. This still translates to same if not better performance, but most importantly, to a decrease in the excreted mineral into the environment, which reduces soil pollution.

To give a second example that became particularly relevant in the context of the energy crisis since last year, we have a specialized mold inhibitor containing surfactants that has proven to have an energy reduction effect by improving mill efficiency, especially the pellet mill.

As a business, we are working to reduce the emissions within our own operations, looking at the raw materials we use and our energy consumption, but this is only a fraction of what can be achieved by working together with customers. The biggest impact we have on sustainability is by helping our customers with their sustainability agendas.

What is your growth strategy in Asia moving forward?

Our strategy and vision for Asia has always been to build a bridge between technology, research, and the latest solutions in animal husbandry practices globally, as well as feed formulation and production. We want to help livestock producers and feed millers across the region by introducing our technology through our products and services, primarily to increase efficiency but also to make their businesses sustainable. And to do this, our teams are set up to provide a three-level support framework, that draws from the knowledge of local representatives, the nutrition team in the Bangkok office, and the global teams in the Netherlands and the US.