Adding Value with Additives?
There is a plethora of feed additives on the market. They all claim to give added value to your business by means of performance, profit and improved health status, to name a few. In amongst all of the marketing, how do you determine if additives are adding benefit?
For a company to have spent considerable time, money and effort developing, researching, registering, manufacturing and marketing a product, we can assume that the product does "what it says on the tin". If we were to spend effort testing every product that we wanted to use to assess the claims, we would be in research and not in production.
The crux of the matter is whether adding a product to your current feed will give a return on investment for your business. If you are already performing at very high levels, it is less likely that an additive will bring you considerable benefits. However, if your performance is sub-optimal, an additive may bring real benefits to your business.
To help your analysis of the value of products and how they work, find out the following:
- • Are there peer-reviewed reports or research?
- • Is dose-response data available?
- • Are the results statistically analysed and shown to be different to controls relevant to your situation?
- • What are the registered inclusion levels?
- • What is the cost of inclusion?
- • What benefit do you expect to see from including the product in your feed?
- • Are there any risks with using the additive (for example, are you removing a tried and tested product for an unknown entity)?
- • Is there a return on investment?
As an international player in the feed market, De Heus has experience with many feed additives that are available worldwide. It is, therefore, possible that a new additive to South Africa may have been on the market in Europe, Asia or South America previously. Our team can discuss these products and the experiences gained so that we can share these observations with you.
If you wish to change your medication additions or would like to add a new product to your feed, please contact your Technical Advisor with the following information:
- • The additive name, inclusion level and supplier
- • The feed(s) where you would like to include this additive
- • The amount of feed that you anticipate taking with the proposed additive
- • What your expectation is after including this additive in your feed
We adhere strictly to the terms of Act 36 of 1947 and, therefore, comply with the registration requirements for additives in complete feed. Because of this, it may be necessary for us to have a script for additive levels or species not included in the registration. This is called “off-label use” and requires a veterinarian to provide a script, as we are not authorised to sanction off-label inclusions. If there is any doubt about the need for a script, contact your Technical Advisor.
Your Technical Advisor is available to help you gather the information that you require to make informed decisions about your feed. He/she will also be able to advise you on how you can set up test sites to measure the effect of the changes that you make.
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