The enormous importance of quality control in feed production is indisputable for the success and profitability of any operation. Few are the most critical factors that impact the consistency of the finished products and, consequently, the proper nutrition of the animals.
Among the many responsibilities within a feed mill, the analytical work will determine the results and quantitative values of the nutritional components of the feeds used and produced. This will ensure that the guarantee levels are always delivered and met.
It is clear, as we saw in the article on HACCP, that quality management within feed mills goes far beyond the analysis of inputs and finished products: it involves sanitary controls, regulatory compliances, cleaning and sanitization of facilities, water potability, maintenance and calibration of equipment, and much more. In this article, we will try to understand a little more how the quality area can help nutritionists and formulators to ensure greater consistency of the ingredients used and products manufactured, impacting the qualification of suppliers and control of raw materials and food traceability.
We know that the relationship between a quality feed and animal performance (in other words, the achievement of the defined product objective) involves not only the quantitative values of feed nutrients, but also the digestibility and metabolism of these nutrients. Thus, one of the great challenges for nutritionists, formulators, and animal nutrition professionals is to monitor all aspects of the production system and measure the variables that represent good indicators of quality control.
The principle of proper formulation
In past articles, we talked a bit about the formulation process and what would be the main points of attention when using formulation software such as Optimal Formula and Optimal FormulaPlus. Well, we know that an adequate formulation is one that meets the nutritional needs of the animal according to its physiological stage, representing the ideal quantitative balance between the nutrients – such as the correct ratio between lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, among others.
In the industrial context, feed and food formulation can also consider the variables of cost and raw material availability so that the appropriate formulation is the least costly possible – such an approach allows companies to achieve higher margins, reduced costs, and a process to create or adapt recipes for new products on the market more accurately and quickly.
To achieve this goal, the starting point for developing an animal feed is to perform the characterization of the animals in terms of herd, defining the purpose, feed category and animal needs. Thus, it will be possible to determine all the nutrients, ingredients, and functional foods that will participate in the formula. Then, the chemical composition values of the inputs used will be directly responsible not only for the optimal balancing of nutritional requirements, but also for the quality of the finished product.
Determining the quality of inputs and finished products
Whether to meet the normative instructions and government regulations, to apply traceability policies of food used or to qualify the suppliers selected by the company. The quality control of the ingredients used in the production process is crucial for greater predictability regarding the quality of a feed, supplement, premix, among other foods.
Inside the factory, when receiving the raw materials, the quality team takes the first step: an accurate sampling is done and the analytical procedures that will start the laboratory activities for the evaluation of the received items are defined. Whether in their own laboratories or outsourcing this activity, all these sampling and analytical inspection procedures of the inputs need to be written and documented, for example, in the company’s GMP Manual.
This sample received in the factory yard goes, from this moment on, through the entire analytical process – color, odor, presence of foreign materials, deterioration by biotoxins, texture and uniformity are some of the analyses performed to certify the quality. In more detail, depending on the raw material received, the quality area may perform more detailed individual analyses to certify that:
- The team responsible for the formulation is working with updated matrices and nutritional values. To do this, they usually generate statistics of the analyses performed on the samples and pass the mean values and standard deviation found to the formulation. Levels of crude protein, mineral matter, crude fiber, ethereal extract, and moisture are measured and can be used to calculate amino acid and energy values of the ingredients. In addition, balancing with correct composition levels brings more precision to the calculations, which directly impacts the production costs of the inputs used;
- Whether suppliers are qualified and whether they are in fact delivering inputs that meet the assurance levels you have previously stated. Suppose you bought a meat and bone meal (MBM) with a protein value of 50%. However, when performing the analyses, a high percentage of the samples received from this supplier were below the minimum tolerance limit of 45% d and Protein – i.e. an overall assessment of the quality of the food supplied can directly impact on a lower variation of the nutritional levels used during the formulation of the products.
Remembering that, as in the formulation process, the use of specific software to perform the quality control of your samples contributes to the optimization of costs and operation. Solutions such as Labinfy, which are in the cloud and allow access from any internet-connected device, bring more mobility and agility to laboratories, which is essential so that sample results can be quickly passed to the nutrition, R&D or formulation area.
The impact of variability in formulated feed
As we saw earlier, feed mills need to work closely with the quality area to adopt well-defined controls and strategies that optimize production costs, guarantee consistent and safe products, and bring the feed produced as close as possible to the formulated feed.
To exemplify how the variability can bring important impacts to production, a Wisium study showed the impact it brings, for example, leaving a feed more expensive than necessary and leading to problems in the field, which is nothing more than not having a good production performance or animal performance. The figure below shows the variability of the Crude Protein of a Brazilian Soybean meal in different lots during the year and the values used for formulation (the blue lines show the value used by the client, 46,8% e the statistical average value of 46,4%).
The study can be accessed in Volume 29, Issue 2, 2021 of All About Feed magazine, available at this link.
In short, certain feed production lots used inputs that had more Protein than the average used in the formulation – that is, they had an excess of Protein in the feed, bringing a cost increase that could have been avoided. On the other hand, in flocks that used inputs with lower than average values, the feed produced had less Protein than the formulated one, thus causing a reduction in the animals’ performance. The study also pointed out that a plant that produces 100,000 tons per year, would have an unnecessary cost of more than R$ 260,000 reais when using higher levels of Protein than the one needed to meet the guarantee levels and nutritional requirements of the product.
Image taken from All About Feed, Volume 29 #2 2021.
The study itself brings an interesting discussion about how laboratory equipment, such as NIRS, brings immediate results to the production process. An association of NIRS with formulation software and equations for calculating nutritional values becomes an effective strategy to avoid erroneous nutritional compositions in the formulation. If you consider, for example, short and fast cycle species such as broilers, you have animals that gain weight per hour. Therefore, any unnecessary addition of time, for any adjustment, can compromise the entire production system.
Connecting Laboratory Analyses to Formulation
The importance of quality and formulation management processes going hand in hand is undeniable. This can be proven both in theory and in practice, with many quality, nutrition, formulation, and R&D areas of major food producing companies being part of the same cell.
Considering only the formulation process (and not all the administrative and commercial benefits, such as, for example, the qualification and better selection of suppliers), by performing qualitative and bromatological analysis of the ingredients, formulators can work with nutritional matrixes that are always up to date, which contributes to a higher valorization of the raw materials and reduces production costs.
This is a way that also decreases the production time and approximates the nutritional levels between the formulated feed and the produced feed. Working with more accurate data of the chemical composition values of the inputs used, we not only increase the nutritional precision of the formulation, but also observe an improvement in the financial performance of the operation, besides the increase in feed efficiency with the feed produced.
Whether it is the quality of ingredients, control processes and procedures, quality measurement of finished products, or the control of toxic substances. By bringing laboratory and formulation personnel closer together, gauging more complete statistics and data, and implementing effective supplier and raw material management, companies can achieve consistent quality production, efficient processes, and increased profitability.
