Cargill expands animal nutrition innovation centre
Cargill has expanded and renovated its Global Animal Nutrition Innovation Centre in Velddriel, The Netherlands. It has a new broiler grow-out facility and a state of the art broiler breeder facility. It was officially opened on January 13.
“We wanted to find the best way to meet with the demands of the market”, said Dave Cook, research & development director for Cargill’s animal nutrition business. “As a result, we designed a facility we believe will promote collaboration among our experts, as well as those from local universities to accelerate innovation. This will allow us to more quickly deliver new products and services to our customers around the world.”
The Velddriel facilities previously were the R&D premises of Provimi. This Netherlands-based premix supplier, was acquired by Cargill in 2011, thus expanding their animal nutrition business considerably on a global scale.
Designed for dairy, poultry and swine research, this Innovation Centre now includes new poultry nutrition research facilities, new guest viewing corridors and the collective know-how of its animal nutrition experts in The Netherlands.
The $3.7 million expansion and renovation, comprises a new broiler growing -, as well as a broiler breeder facility. Both these were designed to meet or exceed current and future European regulations and to provide additional capabilities. As one example, the new broiler breeder facility allows the Cargill scientists to investigate the impact of the hen’s nutrition on the performance of its offspring. “We can collect the fertile eggs, incubate them “in-house” and not only look at fertility and hatchability, but also to subsequent performance,” according to Cook.
The Global Innovation Centre is expected to host over 3,000 visitors per year. The new viewing corridors allow visitors to conveniently view the animal R&D facilities, without changing footwear or clothes, while improving hygiene standards.
The Velddriel location is one of Cargill’s two global animal nutrition innovation centres. The other centre is based in Elk River, MN, USA. Both these locations serve as the hubs of the company’s global network of 15 animal nutrition research and technology -, or so-called “application” centres. These centres are located around the world and have the objective to specifically translate the basic research findings of “Elk River” and “Velddriel” into local solutions, based on local conditions, climate and so on. And that’s what it always is all about to meet expectations: “think global, act local.”
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