In March 2024, Novus International announced the acquisition of BioResource International, an enzyme feed additive manufacturer specializing in the research, development and production of high-performance enzymes to optimize animal nutrition.
To discuss the potential of the feed enzyme sector and the company's recent acquisition, Novus's President and CEO Dan Meagher joined the Chat.
Transcript of interview with Dan Meagher, president and CEO, Novus International
Jackie Roembke, editor-in-chief, Feed Strategy and WATT Feed brands: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Feed Strategy Chat. I'm your host, Jackie Roembke, editor-in-chief of WATT Feed brands. This edition of Feed Strategy Chat is brought to you by FeedStrategy.com. FeedStrategy.com is your source for the latest news and leading-edge analysis of the global animal feed industry.
Today we're joined by Dan Meagher, president and CEO of Novus International. He's here to talk about developments in the enzyme market and the company's recent acquisition of BioResource International (BRI).
Hi, Dan, how are you today?
Dan Meagher, president and CEO, Novus International: Hi, Jackie. Doing well. Thanks for having me.
Roembke: Absolutely. Thanks for being here. We recently held our annual Poultry Nutrition and Feed Survey. One of the findings from that report was that 42% of respondents cited that they plan to increase their enzyme usage in poultry rations. What do you think has contributed to this heightened interest in enzymes?
Meagher: I think there's a number of factors, Jackie. I think the phytase market developed a number of years ago is one of the first enzymes. I think as the industry has continued to bring new technologies forward, the enzyme area is one that's getting a lot of attention for a number of reasons. Certainly, digestibility of feed inputs is critical. I think it has a major impact on animals' ability to utilize a lot of different things being thrown at them. And, diets, you've got alternative ingredients that come and go depending on corn and soy into the diet. So I think any of the enzymes, the technologies that have come along to breaking down phosphorus, phytate, the cellulose, the proteins — all these different things are gaining a lot of attraction.
I think it focuses a lot on the gut health, that focus is a lot on the absorption of feed, a lot on sustainability. So the ability to be able to feed more efficiently, feed less to get more on the on the back end, is certainly what's driven the enzyme category. It's also a cocktail. So even though there was a one-time individual enzyme we've seen a lot of cocktails of different blends of enzymes that are gaining a lot of traction.
I also think finished product quality. When people are looking at the quality of the meat out of the back end, there's a lot of timing in that as well. So when you have feed cost reduction that improves efficiency, when you have better utilization, when you have potential on product quality impacts, meat quality, those types of things. Obviously, that's an area that a lot of people have been focused on. And I think we'll continue to focus on as we go forward.
And that's why it's pretty critical to us at Novus that we continue to bring enzymes into our portfolio to various production means because there's a lot of different ways we can produce enzymes, and that's what we're looking at in our future.
Roembke: Very good. Thank you for those insights. Now, from your perspective, what's the near-term outlook for the category?
Meagher: Well, I think based on everything I just said, there's a lot. You mentioned in your opening monogastrics, I also think ruminants, which is a different area, is also seeing indications — it's tougher animal on ruminants, than it is on on monogastric, but I think enzymes are going to continue to be a basis for feed additives on enzymes on also potential of where enzymes can also have impacts on forage quality and a lot of different things.
It's a total solution. So I think technology is going to continue to bring new and creative ideas, whether they're in combination of enzymes that are affecting all the inputs going into the animals or whether there's some actually new technology in a macro-corn, macro-crops in addition, so I fully expect enzymes to be an area of focus for many years to come.
Roembke: Very good. Now, tell me a little bit more about the recent announcement of the acquisition of BioResource International.
Meagher: Yeah, so we're excited about it. You know, clearly our employees are excited about about the acquisition, but really it goes back for many years, all the way back into the mid 90s, when Dr. Jason Shih was doing some of his work at North Carolina State and started seeing a lot of unique things in his lab around feather meal and a lot of things that we've seen on digestibility, which really was in the early stage of a protease enzyme that we fortunately had teamed up with him. We were interested on what his results were, and ultimately, that led to a partnership that started in 2008.
Together, we really created the protease enzyme market in the global feed arena, which we're very proud of and certainly BRI was extremely proud of being in on the early stages of developing that protease, we felt very good about the ability to go out and partner with them on a commercial basis to go to the market through our through our channel and create that market.
We've watched that produce, market and grow. When I came back into the company, late 2019 into early 2020, when we started Project Destiny, there was a number of things around that project that we've executed on the one of the primary things was looking at down the road, how could we eventually bring BRI into our family. As we thought about our enzyme strategies, as we thought about getting platforms into our company that could work on product development and new product introductions, we made the acquisition of Agrivida, which is a corn crop interiors technology.
We saw the partnership with BRI and acquiring them to give us access into fermentation. And obviously continuing to promote and grow the DEP-100, which is part of our, our Cibenza product line. But also BRI had some interesting xylanase probiotic combinations and a few other things that we're excited about bringing it to the marketplace.
I see this it's kind of a completion of our destiny, and that we now own the IP and the technologies that we want to continue to bring to our customers and the solutions and also be able to think about how we do our product development and R&D, blend the quality of people that we brought in from BRI to match with our people, and I'm really excited about the partnership and where it's gonna take us in the future.
Roembke: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for those insights. If you'd like more information about this acquisition, please visit www.novusint.com.
Thanks, Dan, and thank to you for tuning in.