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Out and ABOUT By Andrew Mounsey A Visit to


2Agriculture Ltd


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Out & About is sponsored by B2B Nutrition, suppliers of


Edinburgh www.b2bnutrition.co.uk


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To Edinburgh. In February. Now Edinburgh is a beautiful city and it holds a very special place


in my heart, not only because it was at the University there where I studied for my degree but also (and more importantly) because it was in Edinburgh that I met my future wife. Fiona, as many of you will know, has not only put up with me for more than 30 years but also works alongside me in putting together this magazine. So when we stepped off the plane from Cardiff, we were both


instantly familiar with the uniquely fresh feel of the Edinburgh air. Bracing, you could call it. But there was method to our madness in choosing to visit now rather than waiting to experience one of those glorious summer days which transform Scotland’s capital later in the year. It was the opening weekend of the Six Nations, Ireland the visitors, and the whole city was awash with blue and green. Now, it would be churlish to upset our readers from Ireland by


mentioning the score; suffice it to say that it was a hugely enjoyable, competitive, pulsating game which swung one way, then the other and the result could have gone either way – with rugby the real winner. It was to Gavin Berry, managing director of 2 Agriculture Ltd and


long-time stalwart of Bearsden Rugby Club, that we were indebted for providing tickets for such a highly sought after fixture. By the time we met with him, at the company’s Fairview mill next to Edinburgh Airport on the following Monday morning, the hangovers from celebrating on Saturday night were just about beginning to fade. Post-match analysis complete, Gavin gave us some background to


this relatively new name in the feed industry. 2Agriculture was founded as a standalone feed milling company in November 2014 following the divestment by the Vion Food Group of its UK operations. These


had been formed out of the Grampian Food Group which itself had derived from a number of former companies including Favor Parker, the Marshall Food Group and Cymru Country Feeds. Vion’s UK poultry operation was bought by the 2 Sisters Food Group, which made the decision to restructure their new acquisition leaving the milling operation as a standalone feed producer. And hence 2Agriculture was born. Gavin had been involved with the business for almost 28 years


at the time of the creation of the 2Agriculture feed milling brand in 2014. He started with the Marshall Food Group and stayed on when it was taken over by Grampian, which in turn was acquired by Vion. Although coming from an agricultural background, his roles previously had been on the finance side. Moving into the wider operational role with his appointment as Managing Director in 2014 afforded him a wider perspective of the business as a whole. It was, he says, fantastic to get away from the number- crunching! From its establishment as a standalone company in 2014,


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2Agriculture owned and operated three compound mills together with a plant in Chettisham, Cambridgeshire dedicated to the production of ExtruPro. Originally developed by Favor Parker in the 1980s, ExtruPro is an extruded blend of full fat rapeseed and field beans, used both within 2Agriculture as well as being offered for external sale. Made exclusively from home-grown ingredients, it is highly digestible, rich in protein and energy and a very good replacement for imported soya. Besides its nutritional value, it is also beneficial for litter quality. “We are very proud of the product and rate it very highly,” says Gavin. “We use as much as we can in our broiler diets.” Currently, over 100,000 tonnes are produced annually. Fuel costs keep on rising and hauling feed long distances is an


expensive thing to do. So the compound mills are strategically located, as close as possible to the major concentration of customers, which for broilers means Lincolnshire and East Anglia in particular, whereas layers , though spread more evenly across the country, tend to be more prevalent in the western half of it. The mill at Stoke Ferry near Kings Lynn in Norfolk, which is ideally placed to serve customers throughout East Anglia, produces between 7500 and 8000 tonnes of feed per week. From Lllay, near Wrexham, customers across Wales, the Northwest of England and the West Midlands are within reach; that mill produces between 6000 and 6500 tonnes per week. Finally, Fairview Mill at Ingliston, near Edinburgh supplies between 4000 and 4500 tonnes per week of feed to customers in Scotland. Between the three


FEED COMPOUNDER MARCH/APRIL 2017 PAGE 39


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