Responsibility towards natural resources

As a world leader in the development and production of high-quality animal nutrition products, we believe we have a responsibility to take a lead in addressing the sustainability issues associated with our value chains. With respect to natural resources, this means giving attention to the sustainability of our raw materials and ensuring they are used efficiently. Additionally, it includes the environmental impact from the production and use of our products. As Nutreco only has direct control over a limited section of the value chains, we believe it is also important to stimulate and participate in value chain initiatives that address these issues at an industry level.

Animal nutrition plays an important role in the farm-based production of highly nutritious protein products — meat, fish, milk and eggs — by upgrading raw materials into feed for farm animals. Virtually all the raw materials come either directly from agriculture and fisheries or via other users of these resources. In addition, the animal nutrition industry uses energy in producing and delivering its products. Finally, the consumption of animal nutrition products has an associated potential for pollution.

In tonnage terms, animal and fish feeds form the great majority of our production in Nutreco — the combined total in 2008 was over 9.5 million tonnes. Animal and fish feeds are made up of proteins, mainly for growth, and fats or oils and carbohydrates mainly for energy, with essential micro-nutrients such as vitamins and minerals. Apart from feeds, we produce premixes of important nutrients such as vitamins and minerals for convenient addition to animal feeds and feed additives to bring various further benefits such as enhanced digestibility. Production of these products in 2008 was around 1.5 million tonnes.

Ensuring our use of natural resources is sustainable is essential in our quest to feed the world of tomorrow.

On the following pages in this chapter we describe the contribution of animal nutrition to human nutrition and give examples of how, as an animal nutrition company, Nutreco is addressing the challenges of sustainability, efficiency and impact on the environment.

Animal nutrition and human nutrition

Meat and fish are the preferred food products for many people. These animal proteins are efficient sources of many essential human food nutrients such as amino acids. They are also important sources of minerals and vitamins. For example iron in meat is more easily absorbed than iron from vegetables and meat contains vitamin B12, which is difficult to obtain from other sources. Oily fish such as salmon provide long-chain polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids known to have multiple health benefits.

As economies around the world develop, incomes are rising. With more money, people choose to consume more protein as meat, fish, milk and eggs. Combined with the growth of the earth’s population, this is driving demand. Globally, animal protein consumption is predicted to almost double in the first half of this century, to more than 465 million tonnes of meat and fish and more than one billion tonnes of milk. We believe that animal nutrition has a vital role in feeding the world of tomorrow and beyond and that it must do so sustainably. Simultaneously, urbanisation is increasing the ratio of food consumers to food producers, which means producers must produce more on a narrowing resource base in terms of labour, land and water. That requires greater efficiency in converting input to output, whichever agricultural or aquacultural system is used. It also requires minimum impact on the environment, to preserve the productivity of the land and water employed and to preserve the biodiversity of the planet. Finally, it requires everyone involved in food production and distribution to develop a more equitable sharing of food resources to eliminate the under-nourishment and malnutrition still prevalent in many regions.

Feed raw materials
The major feed raw materials for animal feeds come from three broad categories, listed here in decreasing order by volume.

 
The major raw materials for fish feeds are the marine resources of fishmeal and fish oil combined with vegetable proteins such as soya meal and wheat, and vegetable oils.

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