The Robert Ashton Interview Sponsored by Cultura


DSM Nutritional Products Ltd Feed industry forward thinkers under the spotlight.


Anthony Waller,


It was only when I interviewed Anthony Waller for this column that the penny dropped. The chicken I ate at lunchtime has more than a little in common with a racehorse. You see both are the product of careful breeding; genetically honed to deliver outstanding performance, and both require to be fed a diet that enables them to exploit their genetic advantage to the full. I made this connection after learning that Anthony is both an experienced poultry nutritionist and a keen racegoer. In his work for DSM Nutritional


Products, Anthony is able to predict with some accuracy how poultry are going to perform in response to changing feed formulation, with a level of certainty well in advance of predicting the outcome of a horse race. Born and raised in Norwich,


Anthony studied animal science at Newcastle University. When he graduated some 25 years ago, he saw two career paths ahead – animal genetics or nutrition. Nutrition appeared less abstract than livestock genetics and so he chose to follow that path. His initial search for a first job was for somewhere other than Norwich but fate took a hand as an opportunity arose with well-known turkey business Bernard Matthews. This Norfolk based company was a leader in so many aspects of turkey breeding, feeding, production and processing. Anthony found himself back on his home turf, but now active in the very different world of turkey farming. Bernard Matthews proved a


great opportunity for a young man keen to learn and develop within the industry, and in time Anthony came to head up the Agricultural Research and Nutrition team.


This meant taking responsibility for the nutritional strategy for all the Bernard Matthews group stock, including for those on the company’s farms in Hungary as well as Norfolk, and so overseas travel became a feature of many working weeks. After several successful years


at Bernard Matthews, Anthony decided it was time to spread his wings and find a new role elsewhere. Three years with leading broiler


breeder business Aviagen followed. Here Anthony was European Nutritionist, advising the company’s customers from Norway to Spain, Ireland to Turkey, and particularly in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia. Just as a high performance engine works best with high octane fuel and specialist lubricants, so too do high performing chickens. To get the best performance from their birds, Aviagen customers needed to formulate feed tailored to make the most of their genetic potential. Anthony enjoyed and took great satisfaction in working with customers to lift their performance through nutritional advance. Whilst birds have wings,


Anthony does not and after countless flights around Europe, frequent travel lost its appeal. He was also now married and to start a family when away so much of the time did not seem fair. In 2008 he joined DSM Nutritional Products at Heanor and traded airport lounges for the Derbyshire peaks. It was a good move on all fronts. DSM is a global corporation


turning over €10bn annually and employing 25,000 people. I remember them from my days in the fertiliser industry, but they do much, much more. The division that employs Anthony was created


by the purchase of the Swiss Roche vitamin and fine chemical business. Today his job is to advise customers on technical poultry matters, but especially on ration formulations for broilers, laying birds, turkeys, game birds and breeding poultry. As breeding has continued to deliver advances in terms of bird performance, including more efficient feed conversion, the need to get the right balance of nutrients, including vitamins and minerals becomes ever more important. Rather than covering all of


Europe, Anthony’s travels are now confined to the UK and Eire, although he does occasionally find himself back on a plane to meet colleagues in Europe to discuss nutritional advances in poultry. Customers range from small feed producers to large integrated producers, requiring varying degrees of nutritional advice and support. As well as vitamins and


premixes Anthony’s portfolio contains feed enzymes. He carefully explained to me how they work, enabling the animal to better utilise dietary carbohydrate, protein and the otherwise indigestible organic forms of phosphorus found in grain. As antibiotic use reduces, dietary means of maintaining animal health become more important and enzymes have an important role to play in this regard.


Looking to the future Anthony


sees further advances in breeding that will place even greater emphasis on ration formulation. As birds grow faster and convert feed more efficiently, fine tuning the ration with vitamins, minerals and enzymes will become all the more important. It takes less feed to produce a kilo of chicken than it once did, so the inclusion rates of additives is higher to give the bird what it needs. Although a very large


company, DSM’s awareness and ambition is very down to earth. The ‘People, Planet Profit’ philosophy of the company is far from hollow rhetoric Anthony explains. Through a continuous process of redefinition, DSM provides nutritional input to the market that delivers on the challenges of Social, Environmental and Economic sustainability. Put simply, “sound diet formulation pai red wi th science-based innovative products and strategies promote bird health, enhance the efficient capture of nutrients by the bird and reduce nutrient losses to, and impact on, the environment – a win, win, win scenario”. Outside work Anthony lives


very happily in Derbyshire with Maria his wife and his seven year old daughter Eleanor. He still enjoys racing, although today he has swapped Newmarket for Nottingham. Most importantly of all, he still loves his work.


This column is sponsored by Cultura, suppliers of proven integrated software solutions designed specifically for agri-businesses’


FEED COMPOUNDER SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017 PAGE 31


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