Moy Park's poultry nutrition decision making

The "British-produced" labeland sustainability are driving nutritional decision making at poultry producerMoy Park in Northern Ireland.

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Andrew Catlett of Moy Park speaking at the Arkansas Nutrition Conference.
Andrew Catlett of Moy Park speaking at
the Arkansas Nutrition Conference.

Moy Park, Northern Ireland’s largest poultry producer and one of the 20 largest food companies in the United Kingdom, keeps a close eye on the markets it serves as it makes nutritional decisions for its broiler and turkey flocks.

As early as the 1980s, Moy Park became a pioneer in adopting free-range poultry production systems. Later, in the 1990s, it developed an organic chicken production system.

With the scandal in 2013 in the UK over the sale of beef burgers that had unlabeled horse meat in them, many retailers there have committed to British-produced foods, including poultry.

Traceability, animal welfare and sustainability

Moy Park works with over 800 rural producers in the UK to ensure effective traceability in all production stages, down to details such as the type of feed used. Traceability also has involved a commitment to the values of animal welfare and sustainability.

All these factors figure into Moy Park’s nutritional decision making, including its plans for growth in poultry production, as the company serves the European market.

In addition to fresh chicken and turkey parts, Moy Park supplies restaurant and retail chains with ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook chicken, frozen foods, all-beef hamburgers and desserts.

Moy Park’s feed milling, poultry processing facilities

Moy Park of Northern Ireland has feed milling and poultry processing facilities in Northern Ireland in Ballymena and Dungannon, and in England in Asbourne and Anwick.

Moy Park Europe, in separate facilities in the UK and Continental Europe, focuses on the production of convenience foods, primarily supplying McDonald’s.

What’s driving nutritional decisions?

Speaking at the Arkansas Nutrition Conference, Andrew Catlett, nutritionist, Moy Park Ltd., Northern Ireland, spoke about the trends driving the company’s nutritional decisions and raw material usage in Northern Ireland.

Catlett identified several factors shaping Moy Park’s poultry production and nutritional programs:

  • The growing global demand for food, which requires investment in facilities and technology
  • The demand for locally-produced, safe food
  • The sustainability of production and processing operations
  • Concern for animal wellbeing and biosecurity
  • The need to balance customer demands against production costs

Factors driving the nutritional decision-making process

Poultry diets in Northern Ireland are predominantly wheat-soya based, but Moy Park includes maize (corn) when cost effective and to meet customer requirements.

“We do use about 10 percent maize in our diets, which is generally driven by customer requirements,” Catlett explained. “Even if the corn doesn't feature in the formulation, it may be included because a customer believes that it’s good for the birds.”

Corn’s real functional importance in the ration is to achieve pellet quality, he said.

The inclusion of corn in the feed ration, however, calls for a balance to achieve desired skin color of birds. Customers prefer a creamy colored bird, and feed milling personnel are periodically in the mill to color score birds. If birds are too yellow in skin color, formulations are adjusted to reduce the level of corn.

Feed ration’s impact of live production performance

Nutritional goals not only include reducing feed conversion ratio (FCR) while optimizing cost per kilogram of poultry meat, but also include maintaining the quality of the flocks. This all has to be achieved while meeting the European welfare standards set by customers and EU legislation.

One point in FCR is equivalent to $10 per ton of feed, Catlett said.

Drive for increased sustainability from customers

“There’s a drive for increased sustainability from customers, particularly where soya is concerned,” Catlett said. “Many of our customers don't like the inclusion of soya in feed rations due to their concerns about sustainability from an eco‑friendly standpoint. They don't like the perception that soya is produced on land in the rainforest regions. They've put pressure on us to reduce the soya content in our diets.

“Compared to the levels of soya used in our feed rations in 2006, there's been a 25 percent reduction in soya in our finishing diets since 2006,” he said.

He noted there can be a tradeoff involved with meeting the sustainability concerns of customers versus flock performance and bird welfare and quality.

How Moy Park reduces soya in the diet

“In order to be able to reduce soya in the diet, we've been investigating amino acid requirements and ratios in our test facilities, and we generally formulate to digestible amino acids,” he said.

Moy Park has also used new raw materials, bean‑pea and bean‑rapeseed mixes.

“We've recently found a non‑GM supplier of DDGS, which has helped in the reduction of soya in the feed formulation,” he noted.

The company’s trials with the inclusion of bean‑pea and bean-rapeseed mixes and the DDGS have all shown that soya remains a cost‑effective protein source.

Fish meal is not used in the rations because some customers won't accept fish meal as part of the diets for their birds. “We can't segregate fish meal through the processing plants. So, because it is an all or nothing approach, none of them get the fish meal.”

Moy Park prepared for growth in poultry production

Moy Park is well invested in its manufacturing and live-production facilities, Catlett said.

“We're in the process of extending our kill lines in a lot of the factories that are in England and Northern Ireland to allow us to increase production from 4.5 million to 5.2 million birds a week,” he said.

The company’s 800 poultry growers are also invested in relatively modern live-production facilities. Growing sheds on 45 percent of the farms are under 10 years old -- compare that to the industry average of only 8 percent.

Most of the farms growing for Moy Park have windowed sheds in which the broilers can be grown at either 38 kgs per square meter or 30 kgs per square meter, in what is a “higher welfare stock model.”

Moy Park R&D

Moy Park conducts research and development in two poultry trial facilities.

Recent trials have involved the following:

  • Synthetic arginine supplementation
  • DDGS effect on growth performance and pellet quality have shown the optimum inclusion rate between 12.5 percent and 15 percent without compromising performance
  • Pre‑starter feed formulation using highly digestible raw materials
  • Low-tannin fava beans to replace soya beans
  • Measuring the nutrient value of wheat through NIR spectroscopy and predicting its impact on growth performance
  • QC control of minerals in premixes using NIR and the ability to discriminate between different premixes through the use of a library of scans

Marfrig Global Foods

Marfrig Global Foods S.A. is engaged in the production, processing, further processing, sale and distribution of foods made from animal proteins, namely beef, lamb, poultry and fish, as well as a variety of other food products, such as breaded foods, ready-to-eat meals, frozen vegetables, desserts and other products.

With 43,000 employees, Marfrig has 78 commercial production and distribution units, operates in four continents and 16 countries, and offers products in more than 140 countries.

Marfrig Global Foods business units include Moy Park Europe, Marfrig Beef and Keystone Foods. It acquired Moy Park in 2008. To learn more about Marfrig and Moy Park, check out their listings in WATTAgNet's World Top Poultry Companies database at www.wattagnet.com/Marfrig.html and www.wattagnet.com/MoyPark.html.

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