[LEXINGTON, Ky.] – The National Animal Supplement Council (NASC) has awarded Alltech with its Preferred Supplier seal for companion animal and equine feed products.

The NASC Preferred Supplier program ensures quality and confidence in the supply chain, from start to finish. For a company to display the NASC Preferred Supplier seal, it must meet and comply with strict criteria set forth by NASC.

“We are very pleased to have been awarded the National Animal Supplement Council’s Preferred Supplier status,” said Dr. Juan Gomez-Basauri, global director of Alltech’s companion animal business. “This award is a validation of Alltech’s long-standing commitment to the pet food and equine industries to provide nutrition that is safe and beneficial to animal health.”

Central to the development of all Alltech nutrition products and feeding programs is the guiding Alltech ACE principle. This principle sets the standard for all company efforts, from the lab to the production floor, and ensures that what Alltech delivers is safe and beneficial to the Animal, Consumer and Environment.

For more information about Alltech nutrition for pet health and horse health, visit Alltech.com/Animal-Nutrition or contact your local Alltech sales representative.

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] – They chronicle the tragedies and triumphs of the world’s greatest athletes, human and horse. They write, photograph and broadcast rain or shine, carrying the heavy weight of their storytelling gear from stadiums to media centers, rising before the sun and sustaining themselves with caffeine and love of the story when day has faded into darkness.

The McCauley’s Alltech A+ Award turns the spotlight on these storytellers. Honoring the best of equine journalism, the awards program is now in its eighth year and includes a new partner, McCauley Bros.

Nestled in the heart of Kentucky’s Bluegrass region, home and nursery of the world’s finest horses, McCauley Feeds (McCauley’s) has been nourishing champion equine athletes since 1938. McCauley’s, now an Alltech company, is a dedicated equine-only nutrition company specializing in the formulation of premium feeds and nutritional supplements. They are home to one of the equine community’s most trusted technical teams, aligning expertise and practical experience with personalized problem-solving.

From affordable maintenance to elite performance products, McCauley’s covers a wide range of needs and delivers quality-assured nutrition programs to all horses and horse owners. McCauley’s facility is a medication-free plant, dedicated exclusively to the production of premium equine feeds.

“The International Alliance of Equestrian Journalists (IAEJ) is delighted that Alltech, through their company McCauley’s, has renewed their support for the A+ Awards,” said Pamela Young, president of the International Alliance of Equestrian Journalists. “We’ve had some great entries and winners since Alltech and the IAEJ first collaborated on these awards in 2010. I think I can speak for all our members when I say Alltech’s generous support is much appreciated by everyone who works tirelessly to convey the excitement of competition and the beauty of man’s relationship with horses. I am equally pleased that McCauley’s has agreed to expand the broadcast category to include our friends in radio and television.”

The theme for this year’s contest is “Partnership.” Articles, interviews and photos entered should convey the unique partnership between humans and horses. Winners receive $500 and a display award. Entry to the McCauley’s Alltech A+; Award is open now to submissions in the following categories:

Article

Broadcast (including webcasts, podcasts, videos, radio and television)

Photography

For details and requirements of entry, please visit www.equijournalists.com <http://www.equijournalists.com>, and see contest news on the home page or click on “Awards.” The deadline for submission is January 30, 2018.

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] — ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17), held May 21–24 in Lexington, Kentucky, will host a focus session specifically dedicated to the equine industry. Experts and enthusiasts alike will gather for intriguing discussions on innovations in the industry, from disrupting traditional nutritional and breeding practices to brand development.

“We believe it’s important for those in the equine industry to gather here, in the horse capital of the world, to be inspired to harness the disruption on the horizon for horse health,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech. “Our equine focus session will facilitate open discussion and drive disruptive thinking for the future.”

ONE17 equine focus session

• Disrupting Traditional Nutritional Practices: How do we rethink diet formulations for horses? When it comes to equine nutrition, how can we bring new discoveries and techniques out of the lab and into the mainstream?
• Using Enhanced Nutrition and Partnerships to Drive Market Share Growth: While others were cutting costs and cutting corners, find out how Gain Feeds harnessed innovation, research and traceability to set themselves apart with premium offerings and, in the process, became Ireland’s biggest selling feed brand.
• Thinking Differently: The Secrets Behind Growing the Iconic Coolmore Brand: Beginning from humble roots, Coolmore has grown into a premier global brand and a household name. Discover the secrets that contributed to building one of the leading equine operations in the world today.
• Breaking the Mold on Traditional Breeding Techniques: Hear from one of the pioneers of equine embryo transfer and surrogacy as she shares the lessons that were learned from these innovations as well as what other practices and methods may be on the horizon. What role does diet play? Have we overlooked blind spots that may present opportunities for disruption?
• Changing the Face of Breeding and Performance Through Genomics: Genetic testing is becoming more accessible and affordable with each passing year. What are some of the unexpected ways that DNA profiling is already changing our industry? Is it cause for concern, or is it cause for excitement?
• Driving Tourism in the Horse Capital of the World: When you close your eyes and think of Kentucky, what do you see? For many, they see rolling pastures, miles of fences and picturesque horse barns, thanks in large part to the work of Horse Country and its partners. Learn how these collaborations are built, what it takes to brand a region and build a revenue stream, and if it could work in your area.

For more information on the ONE17 equine focus session, visit http://one.alltech.com/equine.

ONE17 is approved for 7 ARPAS and 35 AAVSB RACE continuing education units.

Join the conversation on Twitter with #ONE17.

[DUBLIN, Ireland] – As fossil fuels deplete at astounding rates, biogas production is fast becoming an alternative source of economic and renewable energy. Alltech’s new product, DIGEST P3, improves the profitability of anaerobic digestion by optimising biogas productivity. DIGEST P3 is an enzyme complex produced by the breakdown of organic matter through a process called solid state fermentation, with production similar to that of yeast fermentation. Since Alltech has nearly 40 years’ experience in the fermentation of yeast for both the animal health and brewing industries, biogas fermentation is a logical next chapter for the company. Through mastery of solid state fermentation techniques, Alltech can produce enzymes economically and pass this cost savings along to customers.

“This is exciting. This is why I love what I do,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech. “We have taken our expertise and decades of knowledge in fermentation and applied them to the development of DIGEST P3. Remember, efficiency on the farm is what we are experts in. Alltech is all about adding value and efficiency and bringing sustainable solutions to market. Dealing with waste, while at the same time producing renewable energy, is simply another way we are using innovative and ground-breaking technologies to solve our customers’ issues.”

DIGEST P3 works with methane-generating microflora to help break down feedstock components previously inaccessible through digestion. This enhanced feed breakdown allows for more readily available energy and protein for the microflora, resulting in additional biogas volumes from the same amount of feed input. DIGEST P3 allows for flexibility in feedstock formulation through the inclusion of byproducts and alternative raw materials.

“We are working with customers to optimise the flexibility offered by this technology,” said Niall Brennan, biogas project manager at Alltech. “We are seeing some customers reduce their feedstock inputs and maintain their gas outputs. It is very encouraging to see the range of benefits DIGEST P3 offers Alltech customers.”

Alltech has just completed a research trial with Harper Adams University in England to identify optimum performance-enhancing additives. The trial was run utilising DIGEST P3 in commercial plants across Europe. In the trial, DIGEST P3’s additional feed breakdown led to increased biogas production, reduced feed costs, reduced power consumption and uplifts in operating profit.

“Since implementing DIGEST P3, many of our customers have witnessed significant improvement in substrate efficiency,” said Brennan. “This allows our customers to decrease the amount of substrates they input each day, yet maintain a consistent energy output.”

For more information on DIGEST P3, please visit go.alltech.com/digest-p3 and stay connected through Twitter and Facebook.

Alltech has just released the results of its fourth annual global feed survey. The highly anticipated report provides a glimpse into the animal feed industry and allows us to compare output across countries, regions and species. Compiling the data is no small task. Wherever possible we collect information from local feed associations, but in many areas our global sales team works with individual feed mills to obtain the numbers.

In 2014 we saw more feed mills producing more animal feed than in past years. The estimated worth of the feed industry is now $460 billion with global production of 980 million metric tons. That's a 2 percent increase over 2013. 

A number of factors affected output, including: slow markets, shifting raw feed material costs, fluctuating governance over import/export standards and animal diseases such as PEDv in pigs and bird flu in poultry. However, the top 10 producing countries remained the same: China, the United States, Brazil, Mexico, India, Spain, Russia, Japan, Germany and France. 

To learn more, please download the survey below. You are also welcome to watch a recorded webinar with analysis and interpretation of the results by the feed survey’s director, Aidan Connolly.

Download Survey [+]

Watch Recorded Webinar [+]

Download Presentation Slides [+]

We’ve just finished a rewarding and exhausting four-year project, our sponsorship of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games^™ 2014 in Normandy. The Games are unlike any other global sporting event and our sponsorship is unlike any other sports sponsorship. Event sponsorship is commonly used as a way to advertise retail products to a mass audience yet Alltech does not produce retail products.  

So, what then are the objectives and benefits of a sporting event sponsorship for a B2B agricultural biotechnology company like Alltech? Catherine Keogh, Alltech's CMO, and Aidan Connolly, Alltech's VP of Corporate Accounts, set out to answer that question in a paper entitled Using Event Sponsorship to Cross the Chasm between Consumer Perceptions of Agriculture and On-farm Realities published in the International Food and Agribusiness Management (IFAMA) Review.   

Keogh and Connolly take you through the how and why of the sponsorship, laying out the objectives, methods and metrics. More importantly, they provide an excellent and succinct overview of a very serious challenge facing farmers and the agriculture industry as a whole. Agriculture finds itself confronted with a wave of negativity even as innovative technologies are allowing farmers to feed more people using fewer resources. It is very important that agriculture meet this discussion head on and work to dispel myths, encourage open conversations and build trust.

To find out how we used our sponsorship of the Alltech Games as a step toward building that trust, read the article at IFAMA.org.

The Games just flew by. It was an incredible experience for all of us at Alltech who traveled to Normandy to take part in the event. We were able to capture a few of the sights and sounds and we would like to share them with you. Here are links to our photos, videos and blog posts. We hope you enjoy them and share some of your memories with us as well via our Facebook page. 

• Games Videos 
• Games Photos 
• Games Blog Posts 
• Summer in Normandy
  A fun Facebook photo album from our team in France 

Jumping

For the ‘Final 4’ in Jumping, the four best placed competitors must jump the course with each of the four horses qualified for the final, starting with his/her own horse. Riders have the opportunity to school each of the horses for three minutes over two obstacles at a maximum height of 1.30m. Riders can change the saddle but the horse must remain in its own bridle, bit and boots. The rider with the lowest total penalties over all of the rounds of the final will be declared World Champion! In the event of equal penalties for first, second and/or third place there will be a jump-off against the clock over the same course but each competitor gets to ride their own horse.

Dressage

Classical dressage first came to prominence during the Renaissance as it was developed for the Cavalry. There is even some evidence that some of the manoeuvres used in dressage were developed by the ancient Greeks.

Eventing

The 1956 Olympic Games were held in Melbourne. However, due to Australia’s strict laws, horses entering the country would have had to endure a lengthy quarantine. As a result, the equestrian events were held in Stockholm, Sweden!

Although Eventing became an Olympic sport in 1912 only male military officers were allowed to compete. It wasn’t until 1964 in Tokyo that the first woman took part in an Eventing competition.

Driving

Driving is the oldest competitive equestrian sport. Evidence suggests that horses were driven long before they were ridden. The discovery of the Sintashta chariot burials in the southern Urals show driving dates all the way back to 2000BC.

Para-Dressage

In the 1952 Olympic Games before Para-dressage was an official discipline itself, Danish rider Lisa Hartel, who was paralysed from the knees down, won a silver medal in Dressage!

Endurance

Organised endurance riding as a formal sport began in 1955, when Wendell Robie and a group of equestrians rode from the Lake Tahoe area across the Sierra Nevada Range to Auburn, in under 24 hours. They followed the historic Western States Trail. This ride soon became known as the Tevis Cup and it remains one of the most difficult of any 100-mile rides in the world because of the severe terrain, high altitude and high temperatures.

Vaulting

The youngest competitor at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games^™ 2014 in Normandy is 8-year-old vaulter, Ksenia Ermolaeva from Russia.

Reining

 Reining is often described as the western form of dressage. It originated from the herding of cattle in Mexico and south-western states like Texas and California. The horses needed to be able to move in certain ways for the rider to remain in control of the cattle, movements not unlike those performed in dressage.

The next stop on Norman’s global trot was Croatia, with its calming coastal landscape, misty mountains and various valleys, Norman knew he was in for a great day! There are numerous national parks in Croatia such as the Plitvice National Park were Norman paid a visit. This is the largest national park in Croatia and the oldest in all of Southeast Europe. The lakes were an astounding aqua blue and are one of the most incredible things Norman has ever seen. After buying a postcard to send his family, Norman left this wonderful place to visit Kušić Promet Ltd.

Norman takes a trip to Kušić Promet Ltd.

Kušić Promet Ltd. is a long serving customer of Alltech and an Alltech Official Partner of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games™ 2014 in Normandy, for the second year running. So Norman was quite excited to reunite with his friends and hear their news. Mr. Kušić explained to Norman that he has successfully been using Alltech solutions for his cattle and so it was only natural for him to include Alltech solutions in his new line of Centaur® brand horse feeds.

Mr. Kušić´s knew that Norman loved show jumping, so as a nice end to an already brilliant day Norman was brought to the stables to greet Mr. Kušić´s show jumping mare, Lady Kracher. Norman neighed a lot with Lady Kracher and got some tips on how to become a leading show jumper. But all too soon it was time for Norman to leave and race off to his next stop.