The merger of two leading forage technology and animal nutrition businesses will create opportunities that can benefit New Zealand contractors and farmers, say the companies’ directors.
Nutritech International and Lallemand NZ Ltd (trading as Vitec Nutrition) have combined their businesses to create the country’s largest supplier of animal supplements and forage technologies.
The merged business will be called Nutritech International, and its CEO will be former Nutritech managing director Tony Manning.
Tony says the merger means Kiwi agricultural producers will have access to a wider range of animal nutrition products and silage inoculants from Lallemand Animal Nutrition and other global manufacturers.
The greater scale of the business will enable us to appoint specialists with expertise in animal nutrition across all major livestock species to provide technical support to our customers.
Nutritech is a 100-year old, New Zealand company that distributes a wide range of animal nutrition products for all species of commercial livestock as well as forage additives, liquid fertilisers and maize seed.
Nutritech manufacturers its products and silage additives at its Auckland and Rolleston ISO and GMP accredited plants. It has 32 employees which include technical and sales support staff from Southland to Northland.
We offer a full range of off the shelf products, and we have the flexibility to manufacture custom blends for individual farmer’s requirements, Tony says.
Vitec Nutrition is also a New Zealand company, formed 20 years ago to supply feed additives and nutritional advice to the feed industry. In 2008 Lallemand Animal Nutrition acquired Vitec, and Vitec the became the distributor of the Lallemand portfolio of products.
The Lallemand range includes Levucell yeasts and Sil-All forage additives, Silostop oxygen barrier film, Pancosma palatants and trace minerals, premixes, bypass fats, ionophores, minerals, rumen modifiers and other supplements.
The merged business will remain majority controlled and owned by its New Zealand based management team and shareholders, with Lallemand Animal Nutrition having a minority strategic shareholding.
Tony says with a full range of products to improve forage conservation, including inoculants, oxygen barrier films, UV protection covers and gravel bags, plus the expertise of the Lallemand’s international forage experts, Nutritech will be able to help contractors and farmers add value to their businesses.
Overseas Lallemand takes a hands-on approach to help its customers manage forage production to optimise the quality of feed and farmers’ return. Our focus too will become more about the silage outcomes.
Our aim is to help our customers minimise shrinkage, avoid spoilage, improve silage fermentation and ultimately make more money in tough times, Tony says.
The executive management team in Nutritech International include national sales manager Shaun Benefield, national technical manager Alun Faulkner, and ruminant and forage technical services manager Adam Clay.
Supporting the executive team are consulting nutritionist Dr Julian Waters and Lallemand Animal Nutrition managing director for Oceania, Alex Turney.
Lallemand Animal Nutrition managing director Alex Turney says the merger of Vitec Nutrition and Nutritech will secure long term and cost effective distribution of the Lallemand animal nutrition portfolio throughout New Zealand.
Despite the current challenging market environment for dairy producers, we are confident that Nutritech International will be able to help New Zealand livestock producers retain their competitive position in the global industry, Alex says.
As featured in Rural Contractor & Large Scale Farmer
