INTERVIEW ▶▶▶ Villaume Kal, CEO Topigs Norsvin
“China is urgent and important to us”
Early in 2020, Netherlands-based breeding company Topigs Norsvin appointed Villaume Kal as new CEO. Since then, targets have been finetuned. The company aims to grow in the big countries where the large integrators can be found.
BY KEES VAN DOOREN, SENIOR REPORTER, BOERDERIJ V
illaume Kal has been CEO of Topigs Norsvin since mid- March. He succeeded Martin Bijl, who left the compa- ny last year. Kal, who lives in The Hague, the Nether- lands, has ample management experience. His
manner betrays that he is used to a place in the boardroom. He often uses management terms and English in conversation. The latter fits perfectly with a company that is rapidly becoming more international. Pig breeding is new to Kal, which becomes clear when the conver- sation briefly turns technical. However, delving into the sector has been impossible so far. Company and client visits have been only partly possible, due to Covid-19. The Netherlands was placed in a lockdown the very day Kal started at Topigs Norsvin, and travel- ling abroad has been impossible for the last six months. The new CEO has put a lot of time into revising and refining the strategic plan, which is now finished and consists of four parts: • Speeding up genetic progress; • Smarter gene distribution, so the end user can quickly profit from genetic progress; • Appointing important markets and clients; and • Providing means to reach these goals, such as information technology.
Kal says, “We have made sharp choices and there is more focus on the aforementioned points.”
Pig Progress: How will you speed up genetic progress? Villaume Kal: “We will add a quarter more sows to the top of the pyramid. This way, the pool with nucleus animals to select from
will be bigger. In Canada and Norway we do CT scans of the boar, about 10,000 times annually. The resulting images of carcass composition help us to make the right breeding choices, which accelerates breeding. The boar at the AI stations will be replaced faster in the future. This also leads to more data. Our business is a combination of data and animals.”
Can the newest genes reach clients faster than they do now? “Absolutely. Global distribution can take place a lot faster for vari- ous reasons. Animal diseases are a problem in some countries. In other countries, trade barriers or complicated quarantine rules are causing delays. We will dive into that more, which will lead to methods to accelerate gene distribution. That also goes for Europe. African Swine Fever (ASF) in Germany might also make distribution more difficult.”
Market orientation is interesting as well. In China, demand for genetics can barely be met. However, Topigs Norsvin took a step back in this country five years ago by abandon- ing nucleus breeding with local partners. Will this step be reconsidered? “We want to play a firm role in the Chinese pig market, but in a re- sponsible way. The Chinese market has changed radically, and cli- ents are far more professional compared to five years ago. Cooling and freezing capacity has greatly increased, which suggests a larg- er sector that is more organised in chains. China is urgent and im- portant to us and that is why we want to be strongly present again in 2021. In China, for China. China wants production to take place nationally, and keeping pigs in China is very lucrative. We think
▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 10, 2020 21
PHOTO: TOPIGS NORSVIN
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