August 27, 2010
Novus Thailand celebrates seven years of growth
Novus International (Thailand) Co., Ltd celebrated "Seven Years of Growth" in the Asia Pacific region with a dinner at the Landmark Hotel in Bangkok on August 18. The evening was attended by more than 300 industry stakeholders, including valued customers, academia, industry personnel and Novus staff.
According to Novus's Asia Pacific Regional Director, Yiannis Christodoulou, "Our Bangkok office started seven years ago with only three staff. The region has been built on our global commitment to animal health and nutrition and Novus's foundation of helping to feed the world affordable, wholesome food". Since the establishment of an APEC office the Asia Pacific region has steadily grown - far exceeding Novus's expectations. "We are all very proud of this region's accomplishment," stated Christodoulou. We are grateful to our employees, customers and key industry personnel who have helped us along the way," he said.
During the last seven years, Novus has rapidly expanded from two feed supplement products (ALIMET® and MHA®) and one feed preservative product (SANTOQUIN®) primarily sold to the poultry industry. Today, Novus addresses customer challenges in more than 90 countries for the aquaculture, beef, companion animal, dairy and swine markets. The Novus product portfolio has also grown to over 100 products including amino acids, antioxidants, anti-caking agents, biologicals, chelated trace minerals, enzymes, organic acids and pigments.
According to Christodoulou, the future of Novus looks very positive and exciting, particularly in Asia Pacific through organic growth, acquisitions or technology partnerships. "We began the year by opening Novus's first state of the art liquid and powder blending facility and distribution centre in Singapore," stated Christodoulou. "This facility has allowed us to better respond to our regional customers needs in a timely manner". In February, Novus concluded the acquisition of the Animal Nutrition Division of Albion Laboratories Inc, a company based in Clearfield, UT. Products from the acquisition, including the MAAC® chelated trace mineral product line, were aligned with Novus's MINTREX® and GLYTREX® chelated trace mineral products to further expand Novus's mineral technology. The IQF acquisition, which was concluded in May, will allow Novus to further expand their product portfolio offering more customer solutions to agriculture operations. The key IQF products include natural and nature identical carotenoid pigments, essential oils, bacteriocide and mycotoxin solution feed additives.
Christodoulou paid praise for all of the hard work and dedication of the Novus APEC staff. "The Novus team remains committed to working closely with our industry partners to help them achieve greater production efficiencies and minimise environmental impacts." Key areas of focus for APEC staff include helping customers increase the supply of animal protein to meet global demands, sustainable agriculture practices, use of local by-products, food safety, animal welfare and animal health and nutrition.
The dinner was preceded by a technical forum "Health through nutrition - Evaluating trace mineral programmes" with keynote speaker Dr Jim Richards, Novus's Manager of Cell Biology Research and Science Fellow, who presented "Trace mineral bioavailability and functional effects in animals". Dr Richards explained how MINTREX® chelated trace minerals are more bioavailable than other organic and inorganic mineral forms.
"There has been a great deal of confusion regarding minerals and their effectiveness", stated Dr. Richards. One of the main reasons to feed an organic trace mineral (OTM) over an inorganic trace mineral (ITM) is the delivery of more minerals to the blood and tissues of the animal. "It is essential that producers, nutritionists and veterinarians understand that because OTMs use various ligands, not all OTMs accomplish this goal equally." MINTREX features two molecules of the methionine hydroxy analogue (HMTBa) - the active ingredient in ALIMET® and MHA® feed supplements – chelating the zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn) or copper (Cu).
The 2:1 HMTBa metal structure found in MINTREX is more stable through the relatively low pH of the upper gastrointestinal tract. This stability reduces mineral disassociation and thus minimises loss to antagonists in the digesta, such as phytate, or other trace or macrominerals. "Increasing more mineral availability for absorption in the small intestine, allows the producer to reduce inclusion rates – so less really is more," Richards explained. "Additionally, the HMTBa organic ligands are fully available as a methionine source to the animal so when formulating with MINTREX, HMTBa can be entered into the nutritional matrix being calculated."
