Feed Compounder magazine
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Please respect the copyright and if you reproduce or quote from them please attribute them to Robert and mention the magazine they came from. Download profiles: Jane Mounsey - Opera is perhaps one of the most challenging areas of performing art. The blend of music, voice, drama and careful choreography takes some organising. This month’s interviewee has been an avid opera buff for almost 50 years. A regular attender at Covent Garden, she has grown accustomed to the very highest standards. For many years she wrote company profiles for this magazine. They were also impeccably researched, choreographed and delivered. Warwick Bastard - His name would not be out of place on a ‘Blackadder’ cast list, but his message is one all should take seriously. His life has taken him across Africa, New Zealand and the Middle East, but everywhere he’s been, he’s seen farmers miss the same opportunities. He’s a man on a mission; he’s this month’s interviewee. Ted Smith, Borregaard - This interviewee has a connection with TekPro, the column sponsor. What’s more his career path clearly demonstrates how electro-mechanical engineering is transferrable from sector to sector. Not only is Ted Smith an interesting guy, he’s also our column sponsors dream interviewee! Ian Leach, Alltech UK Ltd - Do you read self-help books? Despite having written two myself, I have something of a love-hate relationship with the genre. The best self-help books encourage the reader to set goals and take lots of little steps in the right direction. Others, often American, encourage you to be bold and conquer the world in one go. Some find that too daunting, but others, like this month’s interviewee, have boundless determination to succeed and do so in spectacular fashion. But then Ian Leach does work for a man for whom Achievement could be a middle name. Denis Brinicombe, Denis Brinicombe Group - There are times in any business when you have to pull out all the stops. It could be because you want to make more noise to be heard above your competitors, or simply because you have a lot to do in a short time. This month’s interviewee started his own company almost 40 years ago. Over that time he has made a lot of noise in the animal feed industry; he also knows how to pull out all the stops because on Sundays he swaps his desk for a seat at the keyboard of his local church organ. Tim Carter, Frank Wright Trouw Nutrition International - Now here’s a challenge for your post-Christmas brain. Why did this month’s interviewee, a big cheese at Frank Wright Trouw Nutrition International, remind me of a long dead Suffolk farm worker called Russell? Russell worked for my wife’s grandfather, had long white sideburns and wore a white leather covered cork crash helmet. He rode a red and white Honda 50 and was my friend. Your clue to the connection, however, is the motorbike! David Filmer, Flockman - Intensive poultry production is a favourite target for animal rights campaigners. In the innocence of their idealism they overlook the two simple facts. One, that our planet could not support nine billion vegetarians and two, that even in the most intensive environment, animal welfare is taken very seriously indeed. One man who has made a career out of understanding what makes chickens happy and fast growing is David Filmer, our interviewee this month. He could probably prove statistically what makes a chicken happy and could, I suspect, debunk many of the myths about what it’s like to live in a broiler house.
Steve Ladbrook, SENS Nutrition - Two early Victorian Suffolk entrepreneurs entered the agricultural supply industry in the first half of the 19th century. One became a household name and the other’s fame did not extend far beyond the county. Now more than 150 years later, the former Fisons famous name is no longer linked with fertilisers. However, the more modest Ladbrook family can claim an unbroken involvement in the animal feed industry from 1848 right up to 2010 when Steve Ladbrook launched his new company, SENS Nutrition. Trevor Birchall, TBA - I've been thinking about Tesco of late. More specifically I've been reflecting on what makes them so successful. Of course they're of a size where they have the buying power to make sure that they can sell competitively and make a good profit. But to me, their success is due to something much more fundamental. To put it simply, I can push an empty trolley in one door and exit through another an hour later with literally everything I need for the coming week. Trevor Birchall won't thank me for comparing his firm TBA with Tesco, but to thousands of cows across the south west, he provides a very similar service. Richard Silcock - This column has featured many of today’s leading players in the industry and will continue to interview many more. But what about the people who shaped the sector; what would they say if still alive? Wouldn’t it be interesting to imagine what they would make of today’s challenges? Equally interesting perhaps is to reflect on some of the challenges they faced. Was life better then of was it just different? Let’s explore. Nick Finch, Sizer Ltd - The first animal feed pelleting press was developed in 1899 by Richard Sizer. His company had already been engineering in Hull for 35 years, where he’d seen the wastage and problems associated with storing and transporting dusty meal. Recently, Newburgh re-introduced the Sizer name to the milling industry. The company can trace its roots back to that workshop in Hull where the Orbit pellet press was conceived and born. This month’s interviewee also has long associations with the Sizer name. His father started making and selling dies for Sizer presses almost 40 years ago. Mike Brown, Aliphos - It’s often said that life is a journey. Train journeys in particular have always been popular with writers. Railway journeys literally provide a track that stories can follow. Intrigue, excitement, suspense and romance are all popular themes. This month’s interviewee can compare his career to a train journey. Each stop has been a natural progression on from the one before. It’s a journey he’s enjoyed and unusually, one from which he’s kept all the tickets! John Cole, Nutriad - Researchers in the US have found a link between bone growth and a sweet tooth in children. When growing fast, the kids surveyed had a greater preference for the sweetest drinks. When they become adult, the need for sugar declines and tastes change. It was only when I interviewed Nutriad’s John Cole that I learned that all young mammals have a sweet tooth. Sweeten your creep feed and your piglets eat more and so grow faster. It’s logical and no doubt well known to most of you, but I’d never thought about the comparison before. Piglets, like human toddlers, are fast growing and sweet toothed. Michael Blatherwick, Sense Enterprise Solutions - We’re all familiar with Microsoft. It’s the world’s largest software house and by far the most successful. However there’s a lot more to the company than Windows and the Office products we all know and use. Michael Blatherwick’s company, Sense Enterprise Solutions, supplies and supports Microsoft’s business management software, Dynamics AX. What’s this got to do with animal feed I wondered? Well, as I quickly found out, quite a lot! Con Lynch, CFE Ltd - You could be forgiven for assuming that Kerry, that delightfully scenic corner of Ireland, is nothing more than a nice place to take a holiday. The coastal landscape is breathtaking and the rolling countryside filled with small mixed farms. Take out the coach parties and little seems to have changed in decades. But look closer and you find world class entrepreneurs. This month we meet one of them. Peter Fullarton, Forum Products Ltd - Have you seen the recent Michael Caine film ‘Is Anybody There?’ It’s about a boy whose parents keep an old folks home and who befriends one of the residents. Caine plays Clarence, an ageing conjuror who is persuaded by the boy to put on a show for the other residents. Alas he gets one trick wrong and amputates someone’s finger. Peter Fullarton, this month’s interviewee, was also the son of owners of nursing homes, although he doesn’t admit to having experimented on the patients. Richard Cooper, AB Vista - Visit the AB Vista website and the first thing you see are some wise words once uttered by Albert Schwitzer: ‘Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.’ This month’s interviewee is MD of AB Vista and like Schwitzer, he’s also a man who sets out to lead by example. Robert Ashton - An autobiographical column seems somehow self indulgent, yet this month I interview myself by popular request. Well, at least that’s what the editor said! ‘You’ve written the TekPro column for several years,’ he said, ‘I think it’s about time our readers heard your own story.’ So here goes; let all be revealed! Ian Tremain - What’s the connection between a 1950s orange tractor, a travel scholarship and animal feed? The answer is Ian Tremain, this month’s TekPro interviewee. It was a Nuffield tractor that prompted him to join the feed industry and a Nuffield scholarship that is opening his eyes to new opportunities now he has left. Andrea Barletta, Danisco - Efficiency, sustainability, food safety, environment – how can the latest advances in science and cutting edge technologies be used by the animal production industry to address some of today’s key challenges? Creating value through innovation and bringing science to life is what drives and enthuses Andrea Barletta. Indeed interviewing Andrea Barletta certainly gave me plenty of food for thought. Stephen Briggs, Speedwell Farming - Are you old enough to remember that rather unstylish Austin Montego, one of British Leyland’s last new models? This month’s interviewee admits to having been on the design team that created the car. He designed the wings. Yet it was wings of a different kind that really got him into agribusiness. Bill Harper, Harper's Home Mix - There can’t be many leaders in this industry as willing as Bill Harper to court controversy. His involvement in the fuel protests last spring saw him named in the Sun. He also sits on the DEFRA bovine TB eradication group for England which does little to endear him to badger lovers. So what drives this modest Devon farmer and feed compounder? Let’s find out. David Atherton, Thomson and Joseph - For most entrepreneurs in and around the feed industry, the last place they want to find themselves is in a jam. Business jams can too often lead to a sticky end and traffic jams are often caused by another motorist’s sticky end. This month’s interviewee, however, wants us all to experience jams every day, ideally spread on our morning toast. As well as being one of the UK’s largest wholesalers of chelated minerals, his wife and daughter are cooking up a sweet future in the world of fruit preserves. Chris Williams, Zintec - Are you old enough to remember that early BBC TV panel game ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral’? It ran for seven years, ending exactly 50 years ago in 1959. I missed the show for two good reasons. Firstly, it finished when I was four years old so was a little over my head. Secondly, we didn’t have a TV until several years later. This month’s interview subject also missed ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral’, but for a better reason than me. He wasn’t born until 1970! However as you will discover, he would have been ably qualified to appear as his business links together animals, vegetables and minerals. Merryl Webster, Format International Ltd - Few in the feed industry will be singing Halleluiah at the moment. Wherever you look the news is depressing. Banks are struggling, credit is tight, only the burden of regulation seems to be growing! Yet one leading industry figure really is singing Halleluiah. Not only because her firm is playing an increasing role in maintaining feed mill profitability, but also because she is a soprano with the Manchester Hallé Choir! Ron Colburn - Could you imagine travelling half of the country as a salesman in the car with no heater, poor brakes and lacklustre performance? Imagine too that there are no motorways, very few dual carriageways and no Little Chef to be found anywhere. Yesterday’s ‘road warriors’ were tough and hardy. |