July 15, 2014    

Nutreco invests in new cattle research unit

Nutreco's new research unit in Boxmeer, Netherlands will expand the trial capacity for developing innovations in the field of calf and beef cattle.

Construction is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year, with the unit opening in the first half of 2015. The unit will enable the company's ruminant nutrition business to increase its presence in the global market, in the context of a growing world population and limited resources which calls for nutritional solutions that increase animal performance, support animal health and for instance also reduce the need for antibiotics.

The Calf and Beef Research Centre will also contribute to LifeStart, Nutreco's new dairy calf nutrition programme. According to the company, there is a huge unmet demand by dairy farmers in the field of young animal nutrition.

Researchers will have access to a facility with 160 calf places and 80 beef cattle places. This is in addition to the company's existing dairy cattle research units in the Netherlands and Canada. The research unit will have the latest equipment to monitor feed intake and animal performance for both individual and group-housed animals. These include automatic feeders and special housing, which will make detailed metabolic studies possible.