September 28, 2017

 

De Heus starts construction of 'Pig Nutrition Centre'

 

Royal De Heus has announced the construction of its 'Pig Nutrition Centre' in Beuningen, the Netherlands.

 

The importance of healthy and sustainable global pig farming continues to increase towards the future. Given the rapidly changing and challenging global market conditions, continuous innovation is essential in this regard, says De Heus. This is the reason for the company to place more emphasis on its aim to enable healthy pigs produce optimally with as little impact on the environment and society as possible. Accordingly, De Heus is investing in the 'Pig Nutrition Centre'.

 

For the construction of the research facility, De Heus has acquired a pig farm in Beuningen, the Netherlands. The farm will be rebuilt according to the latest insights in animal husbandry, animal nutrition and data technology which the company have.

 

The starting point for De Heus is that research must reflect the situation in practice as much as possible. The simulation of this practice, under controlled conditions, is therefore a precondition for their research. The centre provides room for 250 sows with their piglets, breeding sows and 900 fatteners. The set-up allows for conducting feed research on all animal groups, and across the different groups, in order to determine long-term effects. Multiple feed studies can be carried out in parallel through the individually controlled feed stations. Data to individual animal levels would be collected and analysed through intelligent technology.

 

Wilfried Goldewijk, manager of global support and development pigs at De Heus, says, "We are very pleased with the construction of the 'Pig Nutrition Centre'. The new centre provides new impulses to innovate faster and to bring these innovations to the market at a faster pace to benefit livestock farmers all over the world. A few years ago we took an important step in the continued development of our specialty feed through the use of specific production processes, focussed entirely on the optimum production of high-quality sow and piglet feed. The construction of the development centre will provide additional insights to further improve our sow and piglet feeds."

 

The new Centre forms the basis for all worldwide research activities at De Heus for pig feed.

 

"The investment in the new 'Pig Nutrition Centre' fits perfectly within our strategy to further bundle knowledge and research and to promote the development of innovative animal feed products. In this way we can innovate more specifically and add more value to the pig chain," says Martin Rijnen, global director of nutrition and research at De Heus.

 

The design of the new Centre is almost completed. Openness and transparency are important principles in this regard, says De Heus. The design has therefore included multiple 'knowledge & inspiration' rooms aimed at encouraging and accelerating knowledge sharing with national and international pig farmers. Furthermore, the design includes several viewing corridors from which the animals can be observed from different angles.

 

"I look forward to occupying the new 'Pig Nutrition Centre'. The feed innovations of De Heus will contribute to solutions for the challenges faced by global pig farming; even better use of scarce raw materials, a drug-poor pig chain and better connection to the social and natural environment," says Johan Zonderland, team leader of Pig Concept Development & Research at De Heus.