With the BETA Feed & NOPS Conference fast approaching, we took the opportunity to speak to Clare McCafferty from Premier Nutrition, one of the gold sponsors of this year’s conference, to tell us more about the company, carbon calculators, concerns, and conferences!
Can you tell us about Premier Nutrition and what you do? Premier Nutrition (UK) is a market-leading nutritional consultancy and premix manufacturer with a team of specialist nutritionists in each species sector who work as trusted partners with our brand-holder customers. For the equine sector, we provide independent technical nutrition advice, together with guidance on product development, labelling, and regulatory updates, anti-doping and prohibited substances and, of course, supply high-quality, bespoke premixes and supplements.
Why are you different/what makes you unique? First and foremost, our team of dedicated equine nutritionists, who are passionate about the science of feeding horses and the industry in general. We also have state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities across all sites. For example, we use tumble mix technology to manufacture all products. This technology is designed to minimise cross contamination to almost zero; putting feed safety at the very top of our priority list. In addition, we are also UFAS, FFSC, ISO14000, Sedex and BETA NOPS® certified.
You’ve recently released a carbon calculator- can you tell us more about this and why it’s so important to you? With the ever-increasing demand from consumers for manufacturers and feed brands to take more accountability regarding the sustainability of their feeds, we have created our Carbon Calculator to allow feed businesses to take control of their carbon impact. Our calculator helps our customers to measure the emissions associated with their feeds, identify high impact ingredients and make more informed choices when it comes to sustainability.
Prohibited substances continue to be a concern for many horse owners, and the companies supplying feed products too. How do you manage this when you make products for different species? We are lucky to have three manufacturing sites at Premier Nutrition. Our two BETA NOPS® certified sites are in Rugeley and our third site is based in Fradley Park near Lichfield. We risk assess all raw materials and only use ingredients which are unlikely to pose a prohibited substances risk at our Rugeley sites. The Fradley Park site is not BETA NOPS® certified and so any risky materials are handled over there. You could say we take prohibited substances so seriously; we keep them 10 miles away!
What are the main areas of concern you’re hearing about from the industry at the moment? What are your thoughts on this? There are a few concerns from different angles we are keeping our eyes on. Sustainability is of course one area, hence the carbon footprinting tool, but of course the sector as a whole is facing pressure from social licence to operate. From a nutritionist point of view, we are very conscious that the job title of “nutritionist” is not protected and so have been very happy to be involved with the BETA ENFAR working party to try and bring some credibility to the feed industry. From a Premier Nutrition perspective, one of the main challenges we are facing is supply chains in a post-Brexit world. Since Brexit there has been a long list of new import controls, including requirements for health certificates and phytosanitary certificates, resulting in an equally long list of new administrative tasks required to adhere to the new controls. These new rules have caused significant disruptions in supply chains, increased costs and led to a reduction in the number of EU-based suppliers (managing these complex supply chains and extensive NOPS requirements) willing to export to the UK, particularly those which were small or medium sized. In many cases we are having to source from further afield which in itsself has its own challenges.
As a gold sponsor, you obviously believe in the power of conferences such as this. Why have you decided to support the BETA Feed Conference? Why should people come either in person or online? As the BETA Feed and NOPS conference is industry wide, sponsorship gives us a great opportunity to engage with our current and potential new customers. The content and quality of speakers is always very high at the BETA conference and so attendance, either online or in person, is fantastic CPD. In person of course is better; not only do you still get the same content but also a great networking opportunity. In person attendance also allows delegates to make the most of our sponsorship goodies! For example, this year we are giving away Premier Nutrition branded wireless speakers which play music as well as charging your phone, Volume 3 of our Technical Excellence books which have a health theme to them this time, and our industry famous high quality Premier Nutrition notepads and pens. For those staying for the conference dinner in the evening of the 11th, we are also providing wine on the tables plus a free pre dinner drink in the bar; so there are lots of good reasons to attend the conference in person!
Find out more about Premier Nutrition at www.premiernutrition.co.uk
