“growth mode”

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AB Agri leadership talk recent restructure to support company in “growth mode”

With the appointment of long-serving executive Simon Heath as its new Chief Commercial Officer in January this year, AB Agri has further solidified plans to grow the company’s operational footprint, tasking him with overseeing its expansion in Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Americas.

“With his skills and experience from within our business, Simon is in a unique position to drive our commercial strategy and support me with our mergers and acquisition activities”, said AB Agri CEO, José Nobre at the time. “He will help to ensure we have an aligned, commercial, responsible and sustainable approach to the animal nutrition industry across continents.”

To further support this ambitious growth strategy, the compound feed maker has recently undertaken an internal restructuring that it believes will allow the company to meet its expansion goals more effectively. Feedinfo recently sat down with both Mr. Nobre and Mr. Heath to find out exactly what the business’s restructure entails, why the company is betting on dairy, in particular, to support this expansion, and why its home base, the UK, remains a key geography for the company even as it looks to grow abroad.

[Feedinfo] Mr. Nobre, what can you tell us about your plans for AB Agri over the coming five years?

[José Nobre] We are in growth mode and our agenda is based on enabling a more responsible industry, capable of providing the world with affordable, high quality and responsible food. That’s the legacy we want to create. We want to transform AB Agri into a global driving force and that ambition is reliant upon our ability to provide customers with high value technology applications and delivering these solutions with flexibility in key agricultural markets. We have implemented a new structure in our business to provide the framework and focus to deliver our strategic goals of growing internationally and driving innovation. We will continue to invest in our ‘pipeline of innovation’ and we’re aligning new solutions and existing products with key customers’ needs and prioritising how customers prefer to engage with us.

[Feedinfo] How does restructuring the business support this move?

[José Nobre] To effectively serve our customers, we need to ensure we’re using our extensive industry experience and expertise in the most appropriate ways.

We see three main opportunities to grow our business, and through our restructure we are now in the best position to realise them.

Firstly, expanding our UK-based regional model into other key geographies. Our experience in this area allows us to identify and focus clearly on packaging solutions – for example products, customised support or tailored services – to the specific demand of the regional market we are targeting.

Secondly, we want to expand the value and width of our technology portfolio. Our global technologies business units pursue category excellence and a world-class understanding of how each category can distinctively provide a solution to key customer needs. AB Agri has several established and new businesses within this group that are already investing in new technologies, and this will continue.

Finally, to focus on specific species to provide a distinct technology platform that we believe is critical to provide affordable, high quality and responsible food. With this aspiration in mind, we are starting with a focus on dairy. We are enabling this growth by acquiring routes to market through investments, new portfolio categories and innovative technologies. We have also developed an ‘Innovation Lab’ which is focused on enabling new technology platforms with the ability to partner with external bodies and realise our vision of enabling more open innovation partnerships.

[Feedinfo] Why the particular focus on dairy? How does this support your growth strategy and what role will your new head of Dairy Innovation, Dr. Michael de Veth, play in driving this?

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[José Nobre] We want to create a legacy and we want to do this by Simon Heath pioneering responsible ways to build a more sustainable food chain. Dairy is a very affordable and efficient source of protein, which offers enormous flexibility in different food categories.

It is therefore a growing market, with evolving science and technology. That creates multiple opportunities to optimise diet performance and feed ingredients use. Through technology we can provide farmers with increasingly accurate and timely evidence to allow them to make critical decisions and, consequently, achieve an even more productive and sustainable dairy farming system. We have the people, tools, innovative solutions, and expertise to create a platform that will truly add value in this market. Michael will be at the forefront of delivering this vision, engaging with our scientists, partners, commercial teams and customers.

[Feedinfo] Mr. Heath, when you took on the CCO role earlier this year, it was announced that you would oversee plans to expand AB Agri’s geographical footprint with a key focus on Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and the Americas. Why specifically these regions?

[Simon Heath] Outside of the UK, we see significant growth potential for these markets and for AB Agri. For instance, parts of Southeast Asia have been hit significantly by animal diseases over the past few years, but they are now recovering at pace. We feel that the new emerging industries will be much more focused on animal performance, sustainability, biosecurity and animal welfare.

We have a vast amount of experience and an array of product offerings within our group to meet these changing needs in the different regions and my role involves making sure we are aligned across our business units to support these emerging market growth opportunities.

[Feedinfo] So, what have you put in place so far to pursue expansions in these regions?

[Simon Heath] We are actively looking for opportunities to grow in these regions but don’t believe a ‘one size fits all’ approach is appropriate. Having the best people is key to any business and our recent appointment of Graham Wong in Southeast Asia is an example of our intention to develop our talent pool.

Creating effective and scalable distribution networks is also key to success and we are searching for merger and acquisition opportunities in these regions to enable this, as well as growing our current routes to market through investment in infrastructure and new product offerings. [Feedinfo] How does this renewed growth strategy affect your operations in China?

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[Simon Heath] We have been in China since 1995 and it is a core part of the AB Agri portfolio. We have learned a lot during our time there and now have an established, credible and recognised business that we will continue to invest in. This is evidenced by our recent commissioning of our latest compound feed mill in Tongchuan. We will also continue to invest in our premix capabilities as well as our distribution networks. China is a global agricultural powerhouse, and we intend to be a crucial part of that. [Feedinfo] Meanwhile you’ve continued growing your presence at home in the UK with last year’s announcement that you will be constructing the country’s biggest feed mill in the east of England. Considering you were already the largest feed compounder in the country before this decision, why was it so important to also continue growing in the UK and not just outside the country?

[Simon Heath] The UK regional business is also core and we are committed to continuing to invest in this important part of the business. The new ‘super mill’ will be the UK’s biggest, state-ofthe-art, animal feed mill, capable of producing one million tonnes of pig and poultry feed per annum.

Pig and poultry feed manufacturing in the UK is reaching capacity and the industry is struggling to keep pace with the growing demands . With the benefit of latest advancements in technology and design, we will be able to optimise the efficiency of compound feed production and distribution in line with our vision to produce affordable, high quality and responsible food.

Published in association with AB Agri

AB Agri, Peterborough, UK