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Trouw Nutrition: Paul Mooney and Jim Uprichard talk about environmental footprinting services
3 Plays6 months ago
Trouw Nutrition have a clear mission; to feed the future.
And they’re leaving no stone unturned in their quest to balance the limited resources of nature with the increasingly complex demands of a growing population.
Part of the Nutreco group of companies, Trouw Nutrition have developed not one but a whole suite of environmental footprinting tools to aid agrifood supply chains to understand the emissions and impacts of a variety of food production systems, from dairy to eggs.
Paul Mooney, Poultry Director, and Jim Uprichard, Technical Manager for Sustainability, joined Tom Willings on the Sustainability Hub Podcast to discuss the MyFeedPrint range of carbon calculators and their application.
MyFeedPrint is a project five years in the making, borne of the need to understand and then mitigate the emissions created by agriculture.
Jim, bringing to bear his background in ruminant nutrition and now 34 years of experience in the business, has been a driving force throughout the development process.
Harnessing a combination of certified data sources, MyFeedPrint is designed to give feed manufacturers the ability to accurately calculate diet emissions and report to their customers.
What sets MyFeedPrint apart from the many other calculation tools in the carbon footprinting space is the sheer depth of detail available to categorise and distinguish between logistics chains.
As Paul highlights, the Global Feed Lifecycle Institute (GFLI) database has been widely adopted as a source code for animal feed raw material emissions, but the interpretation of the data differs across the market.
When DEFRA published their 2-year study into the harmonisation potential of agricultural carbon calculators earlier in 2024, the degree of divergence between the 6 tools studied was up to 450%, much of it owing to feed.
MyFeedPrint wasn’t part of the study cohort of the time, but as Paul and Jim explain in the episode, the depth of analysis provided by their tool perhaps offers agricultural businesses, codes of practice and even national authorities a unique opportunity to remove the inconsistencies of comparing results using different calculators.
MyFeedPrint could be a one-stop shop for comprehensive evaluation of firstly feed, but then individual value chain emissions via the Trouw Nutrition stable of associated calculators; MyMilkPrint, MyEggPrint and more.
Paul describes a blueprint for collaboration that Trouw Nutrition have been involved with, including a leading UK supermarket, an egg packer, the producers and the feed manufacturer.
Together, using the suite of Trouw services, the team have identified the emissions hotspots and created a strategy that could reduce them by over half. This approach is readily applicable to all, anywhere in the world.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Sustainability Hub podcast.
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm joined today by Jim and Paul from Trow Nutrition, one of our sponsors alongside Alltech, the Agritech Centre, Moy Park, Aviagen and Alltech.
00:00:17
Speaker
Paul, Jim, thank you very much for joining us and welcome.
Jim's Career and Focus on Sustainability
00:00:21
Speaker
Where have you been?
00:00:23
Speaker
Where have we been?
00:00:25
Speaker
Jim, I leave you first to introduce yourself as your senior order to me.
00:00:30
Speaker
Where have I been?
00:00:31
Speaker
Well, I've been in the last 34 years in intronutrition.
00:00:34
Speaker
Started out with BP back in 91 as...
00:00:39
Speaker
Silage additive salesperson.
00:00:41
Speaker
You've got a good memory.
00:00:42
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:00:43
Speaker
It's important.
00:00:45
Speaker
Developed on from there more into nutrition and especially in the ruminant sector.
00:00:48
Speaker
So developed into ruminant nutrition, mostly on dairy.
00:00:52
Speaker
And over the last few years took more of an interest in sustainability and looking at the global side of things a bit as well.
00:00:59
Speaker
And now I have been tasked with UK and Ireland sustainability manager.
00:01:04
Speaker
So carbon has become part of my life for the last while.
00:01:09
Speaker
Renowned for carbon footprinting, and we're going to have a deep dive into that a bit later on.
00:01:14
Speaker
So, yeah, interesting stuff.
00:01:16
Speaker
Paul, go on then.
Paul's Experience and Poultry Sector Sustainability
00:01:17
Speaker
What's your story?
00:01:18
Speaker
Give us your background.
00:01:19
Speaker
I'm just very much Jim's junior.
00:01:23
Speaker
24 years in trial nutrition, just passed on the 1st of October.
00:01:27
Speaker
Congratulations.
00:01:27
Speaker
So I live in obviously Ireland, Northern Ireland, in a place called County Fermanagh.
00:01:34
Speaker
Beautiful part of the world.
00:01:37
Speaker
So I can indulge my hobby of fishing, which I'm surrounded by lakes everywhere, which is very, very good.
00:01:44
Speaker
My job role within Trough is poultry director for GB in Ireland.
00:01:50
Speaker
As from the 1st of January this year, been involved in the business 24 years in poultry and ruminant.
00:01:56
Speaker
So again, all things nutrition, particularly on sustainability and carbon, working with customers throughout Ireland and GB, helping them to achieve their business goals.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah.
Trow Nutrition and Nutraco Overview
00:02:07
Speaker
And Trouw is an enormous organization just for listeners that perhaps haven't heard the name Trouw Nutrition or Nutraco.
00:02:14
Speaker
Could you just give us a bit of an overview as to the structure of the organization?
00:02:19
Speaker
Trouw Nutrition is part of the global group Nutraco, which is a member of the SHV companies, group of companies, a Dutch owned, private owned company.
00:02:30
Speaker
with interests from animal nutrition, energy, investment banking, and a whole lot of other things that I don't know.
00:02:36
Speaker
Trial Nutrition is a subsidiary of New Taco.
00:02:43
Speaker
responsible for, or present in, Jim, many countries?
00:02:47
Speaker
They have production sites in around 27 different countries across the world and have representation in another 40 or so.
00:02:57
Speaker
And worldwide.
00:02:58
Speaker
Groups in feed, precision nutrition.
00:03:00
Speaker
Started out when BP, back in the day in the 70s, decided they would launch into agriculture.
00:03:06
Speaker
Saw the opportunity to develop
00:03:09
Speaker
single-cell proteins, all sorts of ideas around there.
00:03:12
Speaker
That then brought them into needing outlets for that type of technology, so they started buying into the feed industry in both the US and Canada and across Europe with the likes of Hendrix and so on.
00:03:23
Speaker
Nanta in Spain would be one of the big feed companies.
00:03:26
Speaker
And then developed further into the feed additive business, the pre-mix business, and now they would be one of the major pre-mix houses across the world.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:36
Speaker
So it's where they've got to now.
00:03:37
Speaker
And both in the fish food area, but also the land animals area.
00:03:41
Speaker
So Scretting is the fish food side.
00:03:43
Speaker
Trow is the land based animal side.
00:03:47
Speaker
Big organisation.
00:03:48
Speaker
And it's a fascinating kind of concoction of primary production, precision agriculture for efficiency.
00:03:56
Speaker
Here we are talking about carbon.
00:03:58
Speaker
Carbon sustainability.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, and from Troy's point of view, I suppose it's, in some parts of the world, we're very business to business, so we're working very closely with the compound feed industry.
00:04:09
Speaker
In other parts, it's very business to farm.
00:04:12
Speaker
So especially, as you see, some areas growing with very large farms, direct input into those, bringing nutrition, bringing management structures, bringing all sorts of different, I suppose, sales approaches as much as anything else.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah.
Origin and Aim of the Feedprint Project
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:27
Speaker
Jim, you're sort of the engine behind my Feedprint project, if I'm not mistaken.
00:04:37
Speaker
I wonder if we could sort of unpack that a little bit and just talk to how did that project start?
00:04:44
Speaker
How did you get involved with it?
00:04:46
Speaker
Your background is slightly different.
00:04:48
Speaker
Going back a few years now, it's probably five so years ago when...
00:04:52
Speaker
At that stage, I was part of the Global Dairy Council.
00:04:56
Speaker
And we started seeing the questions being asked by processors, also by government, the need to reduce carbon and definitely the whole global warming potential of the products that were being produced in the agricultural sector.
00:05:12
Speaker
And from my side at that stage, the ruminant sector was being targeted very strongly as a serious methane producer.
00:05:20
Speaker
So the questions were being asked, where do we sit in terms of understanding the carbon story, the global warming potential story?
00:05:30
Speaker
And at that stage, we started looking at, in a business-business perspective, what would be required to help understand the numbers?
00:05:39
Speaker
At that stage, a few companies were just getting into the calculator world, looking at carbon calculators, looking at what parts of various databases in the world were being used.
00:05:53
Speaker
And so we decided to join that, I suppose call it a race,
00:05:58
Speaker
But because we were heavily business to business, we needed to get something that would help the feed compounder eventually possibly put something on a label, but in the early stages be able to meet the expectations of processors for their farmers.
Introduction to MyFeedPrint Tool
00:06:14
Speaker
So we saw, as we see now in the poultry industry, the likes of egg producers, egg packers and the broiler processors very much asking the question, what is the carbon footprint of a kilo of egg?
00:06:29
Speaker
What is the carbon footprint of a kilo of poultry meat?
00:06:32
Speaker
on what proportion of that will come from the farm versus what proportion maybe comes from the feed, much of which is imported.
00:06:42
Speaker
So we then looked at the ways we could pull that together.
00:06:47
Speaker
So we built a model
00:06:49
Speaker
called MyFeedPrint, which is a digital offering for our customers.
00:06:54
Speaker
And within that, we took key databases like the Global Feedstuffs LCA database, GFLI.
00:07:05
Speaker
And from that, we looked at some of the things that maybe weren't in it.
00:07:09
Speaker
and then added those from other databases.
00:07:11
Speaker
So we have a fairly comprehensive end product.
00:07:14
Speaker
I would go beyond that.
00:07:15
Speaker
Obviously, I wear multiple hats, but if I put my egg-based carbon calculator hat on for a moment, and we've had conversations, haven't we, around.
00:07:25
Speaker
the MyFeed print and the integrations potentially with Eggbase and other calculators, I would say that the depth of your assessment of feed from origin, from planting right the way through to arrival at a farm via every logistical step is beyond anything in the market.
00:07:49
Speaker
Thanks very much for that.
00:07:50
Speaker
What we wanted to look at was
00:07:53
Speaker
which GFLA have done extremely well, taking the primary data from the source, for example, a South American soya, a North American distillery byproduct, et cetera.
00:08:05
Speaker
They take the data required, the carbon emissions from the growing right through from fertilizers, seeds, diesel usage, et cetera,
00:08:15
Speaker
build that all into the product that is grown from the field, then add to that the processing, possibly of a distillery byproduct.
00:08:24
Speaker
Then we take that and we add transport.
00:08:27
Speaker
So we look at the diesel usage of barges on the Mississippi,
00:08:31
Speaker
I've never known anyone categorise barges on the Mississippi by size, by draft, or whatever the technical term is.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, so we basically work it all out per tonne and how long it takes that to travel, what diesel usage is, for example, on a 30,000 tonne Panamax coming out of the Gulf of Mexico.
00:08:51
Speaker
Those are all added together.
00:08:53
Speaker
And then what lands in a port somewhere here, possibly Rotterdam and Tron shipped across to possibly Felixstowe or Liverpool beside us here or into Belfast.
00:09:04
Speaker
Any of those ports will then have to distribute that out to the various feed compounders.
00:09:09
Speaker
So we work, the feed print gives us a carbon number for every raw material to the gate of the feed mill.
00:09:17
Speaker
And then to that we add the production emissions.
00:09:21
Speaker
So generally the energy requirement in grinding and processing the feed into either a pellet, a mash, whatever other form.
00:09:29
Speaker
So it's sort of the equipment installed within a mill.
00:09:33
Speaker
It's the fuel source or power, you know, the origin.
00:09:36
Speaker
Energy origins, energy consumption per
Challenges with Carbon Calculators
00:09:38
Speaker
tonne.
00:09:38
Speaker
So you can compare large and small mills with very different equipment, very different processes and actually give very different results for the feed.
00:09:46
Speaker
tailor tailor made figures for the production process that the individual company has yeah an incredible level of detail and it's i don't know if you saw the um the defra harmonization report into agricultural calculators all of which included um monogastric species or a whole catalog of different farming systems but animal feed obviously was a big part of that and the disparity
00:10:09
Speaker
in that report between only half a dozen shortlisted calculators was extraordinary.
00:10:15
Speaker
You must have tore your hair out at the blunt nature of most of those calculators.
00:10:21
Speaker
And to be fair, most of the calculators were there.
00:10:25
Speaker
They're actually very good in terms of looking at the farm data.
00:10:29
Speaker
And there's some very good detail around that.
00:10:32
Speaker
They all, without exception, I think, ignored the data
00:10:37
Speaker
the level of detail required on the feed site and especially on the monogastric sector which is so feed dependent.
00:10:44
Speaker
I think the range on the monogastric, if I remember the numbers correctly, the range on broilers was something around 350% from the lowest to the highest and on laying hens maybe 448% if I pick a number.
00:10:54
Speaker
And again, enormous.
00:10:56
Speaker
Enormous, yeah.
00:10:58
Speaker
In that situation, some calculators were allowing for the land use change effect of maybe South American soya compared to North American soya or wherever, and others weren't.
00:11:12
Speaker
There's been a huge amount of alignment.
00:11:13
Speaker
I'm sure that that was a catalyst.
00:11:14
Speaker
That piece of work was a fundamentally important piece of work done to improve the credibility of the work that we're all involved with in terms of measuring the emissions of farming and food production.
00:11:28
Speaker
And there's been a lot of iterations of calculators to reach a point where there is a great deal more common ground, but I'd be certain that there isn't anything that approaches the degree of granularity that you guys have produced.
00:11:42
Speaker
And I wonder whether or not
00:11:44
Speaker
there's the potential for the feed industry to unite behind a single version of the truth when it comes to having emissions measured to the point of the factory, you know, the feed mill gate.
00:11:57
Speaker
Could you see that happening?
00:11:58
Speaker
Absolutely.
Standardizing Carbon Measurement in Northern Ireland
00:11:59
Speaker
At the moment in Northern Ireland, that has happened.
00:12:02
Speaker
I happen to sit in what they call the Farming Carbon Partnership, which is chaired by government and is obviously financed by government.
00:12:12
Speaker
But again, having decided on the process of agreeing a calculator, feed was still the element that was missing.
00:12:22
Speaker
So the opportunity was there to discuss having a tool with, if not using MyFeedprint, having the similar methodologies.
00:12:31
Speaker
Mills are able to do as they please, but they need to make sure they follow similar methodologies that we have with the likes of GFLI as the main database and others.
00:12:40
Speaker
So that has ensured within the Northern Ireland calculation system that each number will be at least comparable to all the others in the system.
00:12:51
Speaker
And I'm wondering at the moment, will GB, government, or even processors agree on, if not the same calculator, at least calculators that are following exactly the same methodologies?
00:13:05
Speaker
If that's the case, we're all working with a single version of the truth, which is where we want to get to.
00:13:10
Speaker
I think, you know, it strikes me that and I'm not qualified to have a particularly strong point of view on this, but I wonder whether or not a body like UFAS might be appropriate or whether or not.
00:13:23
Speaker
AAC possibly.
00:13:24
Speaker
AAC possibly, yeah.
00:13:26
Speaker
And as an international business yourselves, you know, whether or not that could then be mirrored in the other markets in which you're active.
00:13:34
Speaker
I think from the offset, Tom, within Tron Nutrition, we needed to develop a system that was applicable across all our business regions, with the main one being ECA, we refer to as Europe and Central Asia, and we found that if we can use it in the UK or Ireland, we would like to be able to plug and play in Germany, in France, Italy.
00:13:56
Speaker
So that was a very primary requirement for us from the offset.
00:14:00
Speaker
Would you say that those other markets look at UK and Ireland and say that's the sharp edge, that's what the leaders are doing, and you can replicate with some success what you start here close to home over in other territories?
UK and Ireland's Leadership in Sustainability
00:14:18
Speaker
Yeah, without doubt, but in UK and Ireland, we are ahead of the curve within Europe.
00:14:26
Speaker
Possibly with the Banelux, Paul, you would know the gaze there well.
00:14:30
Speaker
With the Banelux region, yeah, they're not far behind us.
00:14:33
Speaker
But if you look at it, it was described to me one time as a tidal wave moving from west-east.
00:14:39
Speaker
Before the Ugo East in Europe, these things are much less relevant to the people who are producing food or producing eggs or chicken meat in those regions.
00:14:49
Speaker
They know it's coming, but they still think it's quite a long way away.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker
But the one thing that they all are agreed on, they must understand it.
00:14:58
Speaker
So therefore, we see this as an opportunity that we can lift and plug and play in whatever region within Europe or even the world with the methodology that we have developed to derive a number that everybody agrees on so we can move forward and start to impact that.
00:15:14
Speaker
It goes beyond measuring carbon, though.
00:15:16
Speaker
From my understanding, you would be able to demonstrate an incredible positive impact, positive influence on the real farming system, on the impact of producing the food, not just, when I say the food, I mean the finished consumable item as opposed to just the feed raw materials being manufactured at a compound mill.
00:15:38
Speaker
By piecing together, you know,
00:15:41
Speaker
your um you know those raw materials and that and and the and the logistics process but then into your customer base and your customers product development and sales into retail and distribution onto consumer foods it's it's a quite a chain that you'd be able to piece together and i'm sure um you know
00:16:03
Speaker
give good example to parts of the world that haven't got anywhere near even measuring carbon.
Retail Projects to Reduce Carbon Footprint in Egg Production
00:16:08
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:16:08
Speaker
And I think it all kicked off for us, Jim, from a practical point of view, probably now 15 months ago.
00:16:15
Speaker
And this was on the egg production side of things where we were approached by a major UK retailer via a large egg packer who supplies it.
00:16:27
Speaker
With the remit that they wanted to be seen to reduce the carbon footprint of the main protein species or protein categories that they purchased.
00:16:38
Speaker
With eggs obviously being won and eggs they defined as low hanging fruit.
00:16:44
Speaker
generate numbers.
00:16:44
Speaker
Not too many levers there.
00:16:46
Speaker
Correct, not too many levers.
00:16:47
Speaker
So we embarked on that journey about 18 months ago and we're pretty well advanced now on that journey.
00:16:55
Speaker
Number one, we've established a baseline through the use of my feed print and my egg print.
00:17:01
Speaker
So we've established a baseline now that everybody agrees on.
00:17:04
Speaker
The methodology is sound, it's accredited.
00:17:06
Speaker
So everybody's agreed that we're talking about realistic numbers.
00:17:09
Speaker
Who did you get to accredit it?
00:17:11
Speaker
You know more on that.
00:17:14
Speaker
It's accredited through ISO, ISO 144042, and in the egg print we're looking at 14067 as well.
00:17:23
Speaker
We're also looking at some of the specialists in this field that we would throw the information to and they'll come back and say whether or not it meets the expectations of the various bodies from Soil Association to Carbon Trust, etc.
00:17:40
Speaker
They're looking at all what they expect and
00:17:42
Speaker
We're not specifically going to the likes of Carbon Trust ourselves, but we're allowing these specialists to take our information and come back with that.
00:17:50
Speaker
So my feed print is accredited, my egg print's in the process, and the other one that we have up and running at the moment is my milk print.
00:17:58
Speaker
But again, that's back on the ruminant side, so we'll set that aside for now.
00:18:03
Speaker
So there's good understanding that the data behind and the calculations, equations behind what we're doing are acceptable.
00:18:10
Speaker
Acceptable, yeah, yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
Paul, sorry, I interrupted.
00:18:14
Speaker
You'd reached a version that everyone could stand behind.
00:18:16
Speaker
You've got the calculations accredited.
00:18:18
Speaker
Correct.
00:18:19
Speaker
And then you're working with partners in the supply chain.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:23
Speaker
And from the outcome, when we established the baseline number, the most important part that the retailer was interested in was the reduction of that number within an agreed time frame.
Strategies for Carbon Reduction in Agriculture
00:18:33
Speaker
So we developed then mitigation strategies, carbon mitigation strategies in terms of reduction.
00:18:38
Speaker
So we categorized them into genetics, performance, nutrition, environment and energy usage.
00:18:45
Speaker
And then we deep dived into each of those areas and established what drivers were of the carbon number.
00:18:51
Speaker
And one thing that we were very, very concerned about was producers or farmers in general don't like change.
00:18:58
Speaker
They don't like legislation.
00:18:59
Speaker
And it's always something to be extremely dubious about and sometimes even scared about.
00:19:05
Speaker
I think it's safe to say from our side, from the poultry side, the biggest impact on carbon in poultry production, be it chicken meat or eggs, is feed.
00:19:16
Speaker
And within feed.
00:19:17
Speaker
And within feed.
00:19:18
Speaker
Land use change is a massive thing.
00:19:19
Speaker
Land use change, yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
And source of raw materials is a huge one.
00:19:23
Speaker
So I think the message for any producer out there, it's nothing to be scared of.
00:19:28
Speaker
The farm part is 20% of the overall Calvin footprint.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yes, there will be focus on it, but yes, be assured that there's loads of help.
00:19:37
Speaker
We're well down that journey.
00:19:39
Speaker
We're well on our path or on a way to achieving what we need to achieve.
00:19:43
Speaker
Engage with it and work with partners, work with your packer, work with your feed company.
00:19:48
Speaker
And it's certainly nothing to be scared of.
00:19:51
Speaker
It's something to embrace.
00:19:55
Speaker
Amen to that.
00:19:57
Speaker
I echo a very similar experience in my own working world.
00:20:03
Speaker
I was going to ask you the question about feed and its prominence in the overall footprint of not just eggs but chicken meat and beyond.
00:20:15
Speaker
When they throw up, you know, hot spots, areas that could be addressed through policy change, because they're not matters for individual farmers.
00:20:24
Speaker
This is why farmers ought not be nervous about conducting a carbon footprint on their poultry unit.
00:20:31
Speaker
But it does beg questions, ask questions of a specification which is going to be at a corporate level.
00:20:39
Speaker
Maybe it's at a packer or a processor and it leads to product differentiation and branding and new messages.
00:20:48
Speaker
Maybe it's at a retailer level and it leads to points of difference that they feel will build trust or, again, opportunity for them.
00:20:59
Speaker
Are you seeing any signs that those bigger businesses are looking to make different decisions about their buying specification or their, you know, their sourcing, their procurement plans?
00:21:10
Speaker
If I could maybe answer that, Paul, just in a minute.
00:21:14
Speaker
Some of the things that are arising are exactly as you're saying, Tom, that the questions are being asked about sourcing, et
Responsible Sourcing of Materials
00:21:20
Speaker
cetera, et cetera.
00:21:20
Speaker
Even to European level, we're seeing legislation coming on EU deforestation risk being one of them.
00:21:29
Speaker
UK CIA manifesto.
00:21:31
Speaker
There's a lot of discussion and roundtables on where we go next and how we make sure that materials fit
00:21:39
Speaker
for example, soya coming into the UK and to Europe in general, are from deforestation free and even conversion from another crop or another, let's say, prairie, pampas, whatever else, long-term lay.
00:21:58
Speaker
As soon as you put the plough in, you've got a conversion.
00:22:01
Speaker
So those figures are all calculated and built into the background.
00:22:04
Speaker
So there is this requirement to reduce as much of that as possible.
00:22:09
Speaker
The situation at the moment, though, is that the supply chain, the network of shipments, et cetera, that are fairly well established over many years is not a huge juggernaut that will never turn, but I think it's something that is established and needs to be worked with.
00:22:29
Speaker
So we need to make sure that we don't just throw one source out with not the possibility of getting another.
00:22:36
Speaker
Because we would argue that...
00:22:39
Speaker
While carbon and that whole emissions area are important and somewhat critical as we move forward in terms of our world, but also within the animals that we feed, we need to make sure that nutrition, health and welfare, productivity, those things are maintained.
00:22:58
Speaker
And we don't jeopardise those just because we want to drop a product like soya completely.
00:23:05
Speaker
So there will be changes to the supply chain.
00:23:08
Speaker
Those changes will come into place as they're needed.
00:23:13
Speaker
But I don't think we just make a rash decision and say, oh, soy is bad, therefore we don't use it.
00:23:20
Speaker
We have to find a way of mitigating the nutrition in order to make sure the bird does what it's supposed to do and continues to lay the eggs that we need every day.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:32
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:23:33
Speaker
I wasn't suggesting that a business like Trowell would be looking to drive such a change because ultimately we're certainly in this part of the world, we're very much a consumer driven food supply chain and there has to be demand.
00:23:54
Speaker
You can identify where you think there might be opportunity for new demand by creating points of difference.
00:24:00
Speaker
We also know that the consumer often says one thing and does something slightly different when it comes to actually putting their hand in their pocket.
00:24:08
Speaker
And food security is key to all of this.
00:24:10
Speaker
Yeah, and I think also if we take within any population within a region,
00:24:17
Speaker
We have people who can afford to make those choices.
00:24:19
Speaker
We have people who simply can't.
00:24:21
Speaker
So we have to obviously be mindful of that.
Beyond Carbon: Focus on Biodiversity and Natural Capital
00:24:25
Speaker
And if there's going to be an extra cost, that's yet to be determined.
00:24:30
Speaker
I have no doubt in my mind, Tom, that this is going to be a requirement to operate.
00:24:35
Speaker
It's not going to be a choice.
00:24:37
Speaker
It's going to be a license to actually produce food and sell at retail level.
00:24:43
Speaker
My own personal view is I think regardless of what the carbon footprint number is at the end of an assessment, having done the exercise of truly tracing back where the raw materials came from, what the actual web of indirect supply looks like to get to the point of having a carton of eggs on shelf is a very, very healthy process to have done.
00:25:07
Speaker
Totally.
00:25:07
Speaker
And I can't help but wonder...
00:25:09
Speaker
you know, where we go next beyond carbon.
00:25:13
Speaker
We've measured carbon.
00:25:14
Speaker
There's lots and lots of businesses we've referred to that are now doing that regardless of the species or even nothing to do with animal farming.
00:25:22
Speaker
But you wonder whether or not...
00:25:24
Speaker
going beyond carbon into, you know, natural capital or biodiversity, soil and water.
00:25:33
Speaker
I was going to say health, but not even health, life.
00:25:35
Speaker
You know, you're a fishing man, you'll see water quality.
00:25:38
Speaker
Water quality is pretty close to your heart.
00:25:40
Speaker
Jim, you were talking about gardening, again, below ground.
00:25:44
Speaker
Soil quality is going to have a massive material benefit on you and your life.
00:25:52
Speaker
And these things are very much front and center to the public eye at the moment.
00:25:59
Speaker
Not a day goes by when it's not front page news that there's been some environmental, and by that I mean, you know, waste or pollution issue somewhere.
00:26:08
Speaker
And we're not so much now talking about.
00:26:12
Speaker
carbon and net zero that seems to have subsided slightly in our media at least and it's more about protecting the natural world from pollutants i wonder if we're going to be measuring more of that in the future i think i think tom if we look at where where we end up going with this
00:26:31
Speaker
People will be of the perception that, yes, it's important to reduce carbon, to be more sustainable, to be more mindful of our natural resources and utilise them to the best
Holistic Approach to Sustainability
00:26:43
Speaker
that we can.
00:26:43
Speaker
We have a duty of care to future generations to do that.
00:26:48
Speaker
The core pillar of sustainability is not just about carbon.
00:26:52
Speaker
It's sustainable animals in terms of health, in terms of welfare, in terms of longevity, but also from the farming families who are involved in producing this food.
00:27:01
Speaker
These guys need to be sustainable.
00:27:03
Speaker
These guys have to live.
00:27:04
Speaker
These guys have to prosper and be there for generations.
00:27:08
Speaker
in order to feed the planet.
00:27:10
Speaker
We all talk about all these slogans, a planet of plenty.
00:27:13
Speaker
We talk about food for the nations.
00:27:15
Speaker
They're everywhere.
00:27:16
Speaker
We are all embedded in this and we all have to work together.
00:27:21
Speaker
I agree with your analysis in terms of carbon being the front and centre at the moment.
00:27:25
Speaker
We have phosphorus, we have nitrogen.
00:27:28
Speaker
We have examples, numerous examples, correct, ammonia.
00:27:31
Speaker
We have numerous examples at home with water quality and in the largest freshwater lake in the UK.
00:27:37
Speaker
We have recent, in the past, in the Wai Valley in terms of pollution.
00:27:41
Speaker
So we have to be very, very mindful of that as well and not lose sight of these things being of critical importance as well.
00:27:49
Speaker
I've yet to meet a farmer that isn't passionate about their piece of ground, their environment, the impact they're having.
00:27:58
Speaker
They're often lumped in with industrial businesses that are reportedly, allegedly doing things.
00:28:08
Speaker
doing harm, etc.
00:28:09
Speaker
But as though they're some sort of villain of the piece, that's far from my experience.
00:28:14
Speaker
In my experience, they're absolutely passionate about their part of the world.
00:28:19
Speaker
And extremely proud and extremely honoured.
00:28:24
Speaker
to be able to be custodians of the countryside.
00:28:26
Speaker
And thinking about it, you mentioned it, you know, the next generation is how do they make life better for those that are following on.
00:28:35
Speaker
You mentioned in passing there, Paul, that the ammonia, the phosphorus issues, again, it's something that has come into sharp relief.
00:28:41
Speaker
In Northern Ireland especially, we're also seeing in some parts of the UK and chatting to a few folk up in Scotland, the whole area of reduction of nitrogen in the total diet, which in turn takes us back to the carbon story because if we're trying to reduce total protein levels and the wastage of nitrogen through feces…
00:29:02
Speaker
then we need to find ways of bringing our overall protein levels down, which may in turn reduce the amount of soya that we actually need or rapeseed that we need or beans that we need.
00:29:13
Speaker
So the whole thing is tied together.
Addressing Environmental Concerns with Diet Adjustments
00:29:16
Speaker
It's not, yes, it's not a single piece of information that will solve all our problems or solving carbon will solve everything.
00:29:23
Speaker
And also then we find that a lot of the ingredients that would replace soya...
00:29:29
Speaker
may actually bring more phosphorus to the party.
00:29:32
Speaker
So we may find that our Loch Ness situation with our blue-green algae driven by phosphorus that has been loaded into the bed of the Loch for many generations, a subtle change in water temperature is now releasing that and we're seeing a massive amount of blue-green algae appearing on the shores.
00:29:49
Speaker
But that in turn can be partially addressed by managing the overall protein of our diets and reducing nitrogen as well.
00:29:57
Speaker
So these things are multifaceted, but they're very interlinked.
00:30:00
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:30:01
Speaker
And therefore, that's why there's the need that everybody work together constructively and approach it without sort of judgment.
00:30:10
Speaker
That's the key to success.
00:30:11
Speaker
That is the key to success.
00:30:14
Speaker
If we strive too far,
00:30:16
Speaker
in the attainment of carbon reduction.
00:30:19
Speaker
We do seriously run the risk of ignoring at our peril other sides of things.
00:30:24
Speaker
So it has to be a combined approach.
00:30:27
Speaker
Yeah, sage words.
00:30:28
Speaker
It sounds like that's a great place to take a little breather.
00:30:32
Speaker
Thank you for listening.
00:30:33
Speaker
You're listening to Tom Willings on the Sustainability Hub, joined today by Paul Mooney and Jimmy Pritchard from Trow Nutrition.
00:30:40
Speaker
We'll be back in a moment.
Utilizing MyFeedPrint in Feed Mills
00:30:42
Speaker
Welcome back to the Sustainability Hub podcast.
00:30:44
Speaker
My name is Tom Willings.
00:30:45
Speaker
I'm joined by Jim Uprichard and Paul Mooney from Trowel Nutrition.
00:30:49
Speaker
Guys, hope you had a good break.
00:30:52
Speaker
We started Jim at the top by saying we were going to have a deeper dive into the world of my feed print and the calculations.
00:31:00
Speaker
So I guess, Paul, you can have a...
00:31:01
Speaker
A little breather.
00:31:02
Speaker
I'm coming back to you, don't worry.
00:31:04
Speaker
I'm going to ask you about your supply chain reduction strategies in a moment that you were describing earlier.
00:31:09
Speaker
But let's just turn to MyFeedprint.
00:31:11
Speaker
If I'm a feed mill, Jim, understanding that MyFeedprint is a piece of software that's part of your range of...
00:31:20
Speaker
services to your clients, wide, wide range of services.
00:31:23
Speaker
But how do I actually get involved?
00:31:25
Speaker
How do I use it?
00:31:27
Speaker
Is it self-administered or do you guys make the calculations on my behalf?
00:31:32
Speaker
How does it work?
00:31:34
Speaker
There are various ways, Tom.
00:31:36
Speaker
We can indeed do initial calculations for people, just let them see what the effect of various raw materials, let them see the principles behind it.
00:31:45
Speaker
But as you say, it's part of our bigger digital suite under the heading of My Nutriopt, wherever they develop the My Nutriopt word from.
00:31:54
Speaker
But within that, we have all our major nutritional modelling digital offerings, including a lot of lab service and so on as well.
00:32:03
Speaker
So someone will be interested.
00:32:06
Speaker
They will make contact with their local tri-representative.
00:32:10
Speaker
And they in turn will start an onboarding process where the cloud based system will be onboarded and they will have their own.
00:32:22
Speaker
They'll not be part of a nationwide network.
00:32:25
Speaker
They will be part of their own password identity preserved.
00:32:31
Speaker
So they will have access then to various models that sit within that Nutriopt service.
00:32:38
Speaker
One of those will be my feedprint.
00:32:40
Speaker
And if that's all they're interested in, they would just have my Nutriopt with my feedprint as a model within that.
00:32:47
Speaker
A, they then would have the opportunity to sit and chat with some of our own folk who can help them train, help them understand.
00:32:53
Speaker
They would build their own database from the MyFeedPrint background raw material database.
00:32:59
Speaker
It's a huge database of everything in there from mineral mixes, etc.
00:33:03
Speaker
right through to individual vitamins, that type of thing, through to your major raw materials as well.
00:33:10
Speaker
All those, as I said earlier, would have a carbon footprint with transport and production and all of that.
00:33:18
Speaker
So that raw material database will be for them to build their own within that.
00:33:24
Speaker
And they would keep that as their standard range of raw materials.
00:33:28
Speaker
They don't have to go surfing through every raw material that's in it.
00:33:32
Speaker
They can only use the ones they have.
00:33:34
Speaker
Sorry to interrupt.
00:33:34
Speaker
Do they need to be an expert in the logistics?
00:33:36
Speaker
I mean, I think you used the word Panamax and barges and coasters and things.
00:33:40
Speaker
Do I need to know how something's got to be?
00:33:42
Speaker
Pretty much every feed mill in the country will be getting their raw materials through some form of shipping agent.
00:33:50
Speaker
And on that documentation, there will be country or ports of origin.
00:33:53
Speaker
Origin, yes.
00:33:54
Speaker
So again, we can help, but in many cases, it's just a case of having a quick look at Google Maps to see what the transport distances are and a bit of advice on even within the country, how things are moved.
00:34:07
Speaker
We know the likes of Brazil, most things travel by truck and a Brazilian truck will be very different in terms of its emissions to the likes of a truck coming from Germany through France or whatever across to Rotterdam.
00:34:22
Speaker
So those are all taken account of within the types of transport.
00:34:27
Speaker
So when they have that, they can build their own database and then they can add their own milling.
00:34:33
Speaker
So if they have all their information around the milling energy costs, either split down by individual process or possibly a total, having one total.
00:34:44
Speaker
Here's how many tonnes we produce in a year.
00:34:45
Speaker
Here's our total energy.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:48
Speaker
So with this amount of diesel, this amount of gas for our forklift trucks, all those can be taken account of in a drop down menu.
00:34:54
Speaker
So when they get that built, then they have a full, I suppose, inventory of all the raw materials.
00:35:01
Speaker
The next part is the formulation, the feed manufacturer piece.
00:35:04
Speaker
And within that, you just do a standard formulation process.
00:35:08
Speaker
There is also now the ability to average different sources of raw materials into a one product with an average carbon.
00:35:16
Speaker
So if you're buying maize, for example, from France at certain times of the year, from Canada, from other times of the year, and maybe even some Brazilian, you can do a weighted proportion of each of those and give yourself one maize figure for that 12-month period.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:31
Speaker
Eventually, I think some mills may want to go to the point where they almost run it live.
Increasing Industry Transparency and Accountability
00:35:36
Speaker
And in that case, depending on their own internal formulation software, they may be able to transfer data directly into the likes of a format or a best mix so they can run their feed formulation from a nutritional point of view as well as a carbon point of view.
00:35:53
Speaker
Am I the only one that's slightly surprised that we haven't already got to the point where there is a CO2 coefficient on every feed ticket?
00:36:04
Speaker
Two or three years ago, that felt like that was relatively low-hanging fruit.
00:36:07
Speaker
You guys, with my footprint, have changed the game in terms of accuracy, granularity of that information.
00:36:12
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:36:13
Speaker
I think it is coming.
00:36:14
Speaker
It's just one of those things until it's demanded by calculators in individual processors that need that information on farm when they visit the farm.
00:36:26
Speaker
It is not strictly needed.
00:36:29
Speaker
But it's now the point where even averages would be a good thing.
00:36:35
Speaker
An annual average for a particular type of feed going out would be good.
00:36:39
Speaker
You refer to the databases and the raw materials.
00:36:44
Speaker
So those, you know, the raw material database that we all mean, referring to GFLI, at the minute is only country specific.
00:36:52
Speaker
It isn't regional, is it?
00:36:53
Speaker
So is that something we're going to get more precise?
00:36:56
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:57
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:57
Speaker
That's been work on, Tom.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:36:59
Speaker
Very much so.
00:37:01
Speaker
As we talk to the GFLA guys, and we're a member of GFLA as well, we're seeing that they're now starting to localise even within the country.
00:37:10
Speaker
And everyone mentions Brazil and soya.
00:37:13
Speaker
And there's some areas of Brazil that have strong links to deforestation in the recent past.
00:37:18
Speaker
But there's other areas that haven't had deforestation or maybe never had deforestation.
00:37:22
Speaker
Some land conversion.
00:37:25
Speaker
Those areas would be priority for EU to be able to bring in soya or possibly maize that won't have a deforestation risk number labelled on it.
00:37:39
Speaker
So we see that within GFLI as being something that's somewhat of a priority and they're working close towards this almost branded soya, branded maizes that you then can have regional specific.
00:37:52
Speaker
I think that'll be a key factor.
00:37:54
Speaker
a key shift in our ability to really give true numbers exactly another layer of transparency and validity it's just further refinement of the number that we're already working with and as interest in carbon sustainability grows in the future that will be required we're very much embarking at the start of this journey and as Jim as you said numbers are where we're at now that's going to be much more scrutinised going forward in the future
00:38:24
Speaker
Refinement's the word, isn't it?
00:38:25
Speaker
Refinement's the word.
00:38:26
Speaker
That neatly takes us back to your supply chain example that you gave earlier.
00:38:32
Speaker
I should have asked you at the time, but what were the takeaways?
00:38:35
Speaker
What were the learnings from that?
00:38:36
Speaker
We talked about why a farmer ought not be nervous about it, feed being such a big part of it.
Long-term Sustainability in Egg Production
00:38:42
Speaker
But there must nevertheless have been some things that we could do in order to mitigate the emissions.
00:38:48
Speaker
Absolutely, Tom.
00:38:49
Speaker
And I think to give you specific examples,
00:38:53
Speaker
Because everybody knows about carbon, they've talked about sustainability and very few people actually know what does this mean to me every day, every week, how does this impact me?
00:39:05
Speaker
To break it down to very simple terminology from if we pick laying egg production as an example.
00:39:12
Speaker
The key pillars of egg production that we see in terms of sustainability, baseline number, reduction of that baseline number in a 5, 10, 15 year period, down to a number where retailers are happy with and they can show demonstrable reduction strategies to achieve that carbon footprint reduction.
00:39:33
Speaker
There are things that we're probably already doing, but we just need to think about it, not just purely on a production nutrition thing, but on a carbon effect, a carbon reduction effect.
00:39:44
Speaker
For example, we categorize it into early life nutrition, longevity, specific to layers.
00:39:53
Speaker
We talk about feed safety, we talk about precision nutrition, and we talk about efficiency.
00:39:59
Speaker
So all these things are interlinked.
00:40:01
Speaker
You cannot focus on one without considering the other.
00:40:05
Speaker
So early life nutrition affects longevity.
00:40:08
Speaker
Early life nutrition affects feed safety.
00:40:10
Speaker
It affects production efficiency.
00:40:12
Speaker
It affects welfare health.
00:40:14
Speaker
So we started at the start.
00:40:16
Speaker
Simple examples, if you look at the carbon footprint of a ton of layer feed, you're looking at your soil production, your soil source, your soil level.
00:40:26
Speaker
We've actively over this past four or five years been reducing crude proteins, soil levels and feeds.
00:40:34
Speaker
We have more work to do and that's where the focus will be in future.
00:40:38
Speaker
demonstrating and researching into different protein sources, alternative protein sources, reducing or reliance on vegetable protein, looking at synthetic amino acids.
00:40:48
Speaker
These are all things that are future projects that are going to happen and need to happen over the next 5, 10, 15 years.
00:40:54
Speaker
In terms of early life nutrition,
00:40:56
Speaker
Early life nutrition as we know across all species, be it dairy calves, be it chicks, that is setting the benchmark for what performance is going to be.
00:41:06
Speaker
It's the foundation.
00:41:07
Speaker
Get it right and you've got half a chance of building something safe and secure.
00:41:11
Speaker
Absolutely and in every species that we look at them in, that's where a lot of the research has been.
00:41:18
Speaker
Early life nutrition.
00:41:18
Speaker
No different in laying hands.
00:41:20
Speaker
We have different concepts in early life musician, poly care, chick care, all these different things that are looking, getting that young chick out to the best possible start.
00:41:28
Speaker
Longevity, we have a major ongoing project right across the globe referred to as layer longevity with the idea of hitting 100 weeks.
00:41:38
Speaker
I was going to ask you, what's the number?
Efficiency and Carbon Footprint in Poultry Farming
00:41:40
Speaker
What's the magic number?
00:41:42
Speaker
The KPIs, 100 weeks, 500 eggs.
00:41:44
Speaker
Brown birds, white birds?
00:41:46
Speaker
Either.
00:41:47
Speaker
White birds, we're doing it.
00:41:48
Speaker
Definitely.
00:41:48
Speaker
We're there, and we have been there.
00:41:50
Speaker
Brown birds, can it be done?
00:41:51
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:41:52
Speaker
It doesn't happen by accident.
00:41:54
Speaker
There's a whole lot of critical things that need to be done.
00:41:56
Speaker
If we do that, number one, we increase returns, we increase efficiency.
00:42:03
Speaker
along the way we go a long way to reducing our carbon footprint.
00:42:07
Speaker
If we look at feed formulation, if I were to look at a diet, a stage one layer diet in 2015, say called 10 years ago, that diet today bears very little resemblance to where that diet was 10 years ago.
00:42:24
Speaker
We've moved on a lot and we've more to go.
00:42:26
Speaker
So from a farmer point of view,
00:42:29
Speaker
When you're looking at it from the feed that you purchase in, which is 80% of your carbon footprint number, and is a major determinant on your profitability, we need to start understanding that, yes, the industry is well ahead.
00:42:41
Speaker
We're doing all these things.
00:42:42
Speaker
There's more to do.
00:42:43
Speaker
But from that side, you need to work closely with your feed supplier.
00:42:48
Speaker
You need to work closely with your nutritionist.
00:42:50
Speaker
You need to make sure that you're using the right diet at the right time to achieve the right results.
00:42:55
Speaker
And this cooperation between everybody in the chain has to become more and more to the fore as we go forward.
00:43:03
Speaker
We've work done, we've made great progress, but we still have a lot of work.
00:43:07
Speaker
So I reiterate the message, the 20% that the farmer
00:43:11
Speaker
has access to, planting trees, solar panels, wind turbines.
Encouragement for Farmer Engagement in Sustainability
00:43:17
Speaker
You could argue that these guys are gonna do this anyway.
00:43:21
Speaker
Being good managers, good husbandry, caring for what you do, trying to be sustainable and trying to be financially, you do all them things,
00:43:30
Speaker
You're going to do them anyway.
00:43:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:33
Speaker
But longevity, equally, if you're taking your flock that much longer.
00:43:36
Speaker
Correct.
00:43:38
Speaker
Spreading the embedded emissions of the animal over a much longer life cycle.
00:43:41
Speaker
Correct.
00:43:42
Speaker
Big tick from a carbon point of view.
00:43:44
Speaker
And you know what?
00:43:44
Speaker
It's enormous from a financial point of view because you're buying one less crop of pullets every five years.
00:43:49
Speaker
Every five years.
00:43:49
Speaker
Correct.
00:43:51
Speaker
And the pressure on pullet rain is obviously decreased.
00:43:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:43:54
Speaker
We know the genetic companies are already there in terms of they're doing it.
00:43:59
Speaker
We're breeding birds for longevity.
00:44:01
Speaker
We're breeding birds for 27, 28 kilograms of egg mass.
00:44:04
Speaker
We know that we're breeding for flatter egg profiles with the idea to extend that longevity.
00:44:10
Speaker
So we need to keep up with that.
00:44:12
Speaker
Regardless of whether we consider carbon or not, we need to keep up with it.
00:44:17
Speaker
But it is going to happen.
00:44:20
Speaker
it will happen a hell of a lot quicker if we all get together and work with it.
00:44:24
Speaker
It's doable, 100%.
00:44:26
Speaker
That's where we come in as a company.
00:44:27
Speaker
And that's the value that we like to bring to the people that we work with through feed print, through egg print, through feed editors, through nutrition strategies, through layer of longevity, as I talked about.
00:44:38
Speaker
It's all part of a big picture.
00:44:41
Speaker
Working together.
00:44:41
Speaker
Working together.
00:44:42
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:44:44
Speaker
Gentlemen, thank you both very much for joining us on the podcast.
00:44:49
Speaker
Thank you.
00:44:50
Speaker
Fascinating insight.
00:44:51
Speaker
And thank you as well for listening.
00:44:54
Speaker
Until next time.
00:44:56
Speaker
Thank you.
00:44:57
Speaker
Thanks, Tom.
00:44:57
Speaker
Thank you.