Remember November: the eb and flow of consolidation in the feed additive industry
This month it is ‘Remember November’ on the Perstorp 动物营养 social media channels. That means we’ll be looking back on how our industry has changed over the years. 我们学到了什么?? 我们忘记了什么?
Who better to ask than 柯恩泽? A respected innovator with over 40 years of experience, working for several of the most prominent key players in feed additives. A man who was at the helm of many innovations over the past decades. Innovations that are some of the most generally accepted solutions today. This week, Koen describes the eb and flow of consolidation in the feed additives industry.
As the young 柯恩泽 started his career in the end seventies, t在这里 were fewer players in animal feed additives. Most of them were producers of single ingredients such as single organic acids, 抗氧化分子, 氨基酸, 抗生素生长促进剂, 维生素, 乳化剂, 调味料, 等. But as news about the success of products based on the synergetic effects between certain single additives (for example antioxidants, mold inhibitors) reached the market, the number of players increased, 回忆起泽. ‘Blenders entered the industry, they saw the market potential and started to develop blends of feed additives with very targeted effects, 比如保存, 酸化, 饲料卫生, 肠道健康, 等. And with the build-up to and eventual ban of AGP’s in 2006 in Europe, the number blenders increased even more’, 施瓦彻尔解释说.
改变了的竞争环境
Today, the playing field consists of hundreds of companies offering blends of feed additives. Some local, yet very important, some with international market shares. Consolidation in the industry in the nineties created large players – not necessarily with a background in production, 施瓦彻尔解释说. ‘In the nineties integration became more and more common in the industry. Feed producers joined forces, later also with additives or premix companies, integrating vertically. Or chemical producers acquired blending specialists like what Perstorp did when they acquired the production facility in the Netherlands. But t在这里 was also a lot of horizontal integration’, adds Schwarzer. ‘Companies started to extend their portfolio by offering a broad range of solutions, combining e.g. 氨基酸 and feed additives, probiotics and enzymes, 维生素 and organic acids 等.’
‘To this day t在这里 are only a limited amount of companies producing single organic acids and derivatives t在这里of used as feed additives. However a lot of companies are successfully offering compounded solutions that are not only marketed on what is included in them but on the benefit it will bring to the user’ Koen summarizes. ‘It will be mighty interesting to see the development of this industry in view of changes, adaptation towards consumers changing eating habits and food requirements.’