Feed Compounder
Robert profiles a key player in the animal feed industry each month for Feed Compounder magazine. His column is sponsored by technology company TekPro.
Please respect the copyright and if you reproduce or quote from them please attribute them to Robert and mention the magazine they came from.
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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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.