May 4, 2012

Adisseo introduces precise nutrition evaluation (NIR) service

Feed additive manufacturer Adisseo introduces a NIR service (Precise Nutrition Evaluation) combining near infrared spectroscopy and "In vivo" digestibility tests, which allows precise characterisation of raw materials for monogastric feed.

It is believed that Precise Nutrition Evaluation enables the optimisation of animal nutrition and growth performance and can bring an average saving of EUR2 (US$2.62) per tonne of feed.

After 15 years and over 300 trials, Adisseo can provide precise values on the more costly nutrients used in monogastric diets: total and digestible amino acids, metabolisable energy and total and phytic phosphorus, reports Adisseo's development team.

The robustness of Precise Nutrition Evaluation determination has been proven through lots of controls in about 30 equipment throughout the world. They have all shown excellent repeatability, reproducibility and transferability. For all NIR Precise Nutrition Evaluation nutrients, the coefficients of variation remained constantly below 2%.

Regarding phosphorus determination, the correlation between the reference laboratory analyses and NIR predictions has a R2=0.94 for total phosphorus and 0.92 for phytic phosphorus.

Every year, "In Vivo" trials are achieved at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) to keep improving the database, using raw materials such as soybean or sunflower meals but also non-conventional raw material for which huge digestibility variations are observed. It is also true for local or rare raw materials which feed formulators have only limited data.

This allows more accurate raw material sourcing for feed compounders and refined feed formulation matrix. Precise Nutrition Evaluation also improves quality control, especially for raw materials like DDGS from different geographical origins and process, which show a great variability in nutrient content and amino acid digestibility. Low quality samples of raw material with low digestibility of nutrients can then be quickly detected.