IFF nutrition and biosciences takes a holistic approach to animal nutrition. This means their research does not only look at the traditional production standards such as feed conversion ratio (FCR), but also considers the gut health and immunity of the animal. The drive behind this approach is that the industry is moving away from using antibiotics as growth promoters. Therefore, their focus is to improve the nutribiotic state of the animal (which refers to nutrition, the microbiome in the gut, and immune function), as these factors are all interlinked. With this as the focus, the goal is to optimise feed formulation to improve intestinal integrity and gut health by enhancing starch, fat, and protein digestibility, as well as shifting the bacterial population to beneficial bacteria, leading to improved production performance.
Read more about nutribiosis
Anneleen Swanepoel is a poultry layer specialist at Chemuniqué. She holds a bachelor's degree in animal science from the University of Pretoria, as well as a master's degree in aquaculture from Auburn University in the United States.
Interesting article, Anneleen, well done. I will start rferring to FCR in human nutrition as well from now on 🙂