September 7, 2020
Magapor - Experts in swine artificial reproduction
Magapor is one of the leading specialists in the design, development, manufacture and distribution of technology for swine livestock. Based in Spain, the company has focused on internationalisation since its foundation - with a presence in Portugal, Mexico, Italy, and Hungary only five years after its inception.
The company was established first as a supplier of livestock material for various species before turning its focus to swine. Thanks to the company's research and development, as well as constant monitoring of the swine industry, Magapor continues to design unique products tailored to their customers. They also provide a technical service that aims to improve their customers' productivity.
Adrián Soria, Magapor's Export Area Manager tells us more about their innovations in the swine industry, their flagship integrated system Gesipor and the impact of COVID-19 onto their operations.
1. What are some of Magapor's key products?
We offer innovative and quality productsfor swine reproduction. These include extenders for semen doses, catheters for traditional or post cervical insemination, management systems and packaging machines, as well as coolers to conserve doses, among many others. We seek to satisfy all these needs related to swine reproduction.
In addition, Magapor has a highly qualified technical team made up of veterinarians, biologists, and engineers dedicated exclusively to customer care.
2. Who are Magapor's target customers? How does Magapor answer their customers' needs?
Our main customers are the boar studs(IA) and sow farms, regardless of the number of animals. We distribute products from the smallestswine centres to the biggest facilities. Our technicians are the best means of contact with our customers.We continuously visit customers and attend technical congresses in our positioning as solution suppliers and technological partners.
Magapor shares its knowledge to improve comprehensive farm management. Our technical team has given more than 2,500 hours of training last year, focusing on the exchange of experiences and collaboration in an educational context with seminars and practical workshops.
3. How does the new Magapor app play a part in working towards answering your customer's requirements?
Our app is conceived as a library of knowledge for professionals in swine reproduction. It has been specifically developed by our R&D department to respond to our customers' needs and concerns.
These are the services they can access, among others:
- Comparison of their farm parameters with those of more than 9000 boars.
- Monitoring changes in reproductive trends and working methods used worldwide, through proposed surveys
- Library of technical publications related to swine reproduction, in line with our informational commitment.
- Validated reports of our extenders
All this in 18 languages presented in an intuitive, simple and optimised mobile app, which will provide valuable help to our customers.
4. Could you describe to us about Magapor's Integrated System, Gesipor and the benefits of a full automated solution for semen doses production?
Gesipor is a technical management software for controlling all the productive parameters in boar studs. Gesipor coordinates all processes that take part in the Magapor Integrated System.
The Magapor Integrated System is a work concept that integrates and automates all the processes involved in the production of semen doses, with accurate traceability from initial collection to the farm.Gesipor's software preserves and manages the information flow, giving users total control and a precise analysis of the results obtained, reducing the probability of human error.
Thanks to the flexibility of this software, Gesipor adapts perfectly to the needs of the user. It standardises all the parameters of the ejaculate analysis and preparation of semen doses step by step.In addition to being multi-user and multi-station (all employees of the centre have access) it is multi-site, allowing management of different studs supervised by the same company.
5. How does Magapor develop new technologyand create its innovative products for swine artificial insemination?
Our orientation toR&D and the search for practical and cost-effective solutions for our customers push us to seek new technological challenges every day. 80% of the products we commercialise were born inMagapor's R&D laboratories
The R&D departments develop research projects directly related to the needs of our customers. It offers technical and training support to both our customers and the rest of our company.
Our R&D teams are divided in three departments:
- Engineering: Functional adaptation of laboratory equipment, virtualisation of porcine environments, efficient use of machines developed by Magapor, etc.
- Biotechnology: Search for new raw materials for extenders and packaging systems, new biosecurity protocols, participation in several innovation projects, development of new products, etc.
- IT: Software development and implementation, creation of new platforms, etc.
6. What are some of Magapor's innovative products that have changed / improved the swine industry?
We have innovative products for different steps of artificial insemination. It has been 27 years since Magapor launched the first version of Gesipor, its exclusive management software for insemination centres which allows centres to manage all the information that is generated. In addition, Duragen was one of the first extra-long duration or high-performance extenders (as we categorised today), and Dicol has been the first collection extender, special to control the most severe cases of bacterial contamination.
Regarding insemination techniques, when post-cervical insemination appeared, Magapor bet strongly on it, introducing it in multiple countries. This has motivated us to develop the first post-cervical insemination probe four years ago, adapted to the anatomical characteristics of gilts.
7. What is Magapor's perspective on the growing "alternative meats" trend?
It was in 2012 when the first laboratory-made burger was introduced to the world. The technology behind it is advancing slowly, but nobody can deny that in the future the human diet will vary to face the increase in the world population, as indicated by the growth perspective. It will be one more source of protein coexisting with what we have now. It will take some time to build consumer acceptance to this type of synthetic protein. We only have to look at new trends that go against synthetic or artificial, whether in the health, food or cosmetic sector.
8. In addition to Magapor's main facility in Zaragoza Spain, Magapor also a presence in China. Could you tell us more about your international market presence, especially in Asia?
Magapor has a current and consolidated presence in main swine international markets, with locations in 51 countries. 70% of our business is related to exports.
In 2019, we have managed to strengthen our presence in one of the giants of the swine industry, China, where Magapor installed the largest laboratory for swine insemination in the world. This has capacity for 1,000 boars.
We have been dealing with a lot of major swine producers and boar studs in Asia for more than 20 years. For example, we are dealing with the biggest semen doses producer in South Korea.The biggest meat producers in Thailand are using our products. We are also expanding our presence in Japan every year.We have distributors in our biggestmarkets, and they are growing atthe same time as Magapor. We provide technical support to improve and reach all the customers in their own countries.
The reason for our growing Asia presence is because of our good quality products and reliabletechnical service that supports all our customers in the agriculture industry. We provide advice to improve their swine farms to attain optimum production. We are now present in Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia and trying to expand to the rest of Asia.Sales are up 20%, focused in Japan and Vietnam.
9. How is the swine industry affected by
• COVID-19 - with lockdowns in parts of the world e.g. livestock backlog / surplus in US
We are living difficult times in all sectors, and Magapor is not spared. Pork prices have decreased due to lower demand from slaughterhouses, affected by labour shortages and problems of access to foreign markets. Recently, it has been published that China will not import pork meat from slaughterhouses with positives cases to COVID-19, so it is an important issue to control. Hence, the decrease in pork prices together with a reduction in exports could have dire consequences for exporting countries.
• African swine fever (ASF)? Especially as parts of Asia reported new ASF outbreaks
During the periods of greatest number of outbreaks or cases, it has caused great uncertainty for everyone. Once the number of cases has reduced, it can be an opportunity for Asian countries where biosafety measures in some cases were not the best, to go one step further and reach amore strengthened industry.
In Asia, many countries were affected by ASF and many companies closed down, but longstanding companies have maintained operations and some are upgrading farms to improve biosecurity.
We noticed last year that the swine population decreased in some countries. For example, Vietnam had a bad situation last year. Or Philippines, where a lot of small-scale farms are closing and there is really a scary situation, so how is it going to develop in the market? In sales, we remain on the same levels.
10. How has COVID-19 impacted Magapor's operations and what has Magapor done to overcome the challenges caused by COVID-19?
It is a period of time with much uncertainty about raw materials availability and difficulties in transportation (air, land and maritime). Regarding the COVID-19 crisis, Magapor has offered its customers the security of having enough stock of products and having them delivered with hygienic sanitary measures ensured.
Our productive activity has not been affected and it has been possible to continue working with "normality". We respect the health guidelines established by the WHO
When it comes to ASF, in Asian companies we have seen a demand in terms of technology for insemination centres, seeking automation and increased efficiency at that step of production. Magaporhas provided them with equipment and technical advice from its engineering and veterinary teams.
However, in this period of uncertainty, Magapor has managed to strengthen its staff by betting on the digitisation of the company in different departments such as IT and Marketing, by hiring more digital staff in these departments.
As travel is prohibited, to keep in touch with customers we changed personal meetings into virtual meetings. Now we have more contact by phone or computer than via office meetings. Some of our customers are happier for the additional contact, especially as they have their enquires swiftly answered.
11. What can we expect from Magapor in future?
Magapor aims to increasethe portfolio of products, with new launches that add value to the customer in the swine artificial reproduction process, continue to grow in the markets we currently operate in and get into others where we have no presence.
Our vision is to be the world's leading company and technological reference by providing practical and technical advanced solutions for swine reproduction, with the objective of exceeding our customers' expectations day by day.
