From data-driven decision-making to evolving regulatory pressures and advanced maintenance strategies, the USPOULTRY 2026 Feed Mill Management Seminar, held in Nashville, Tenn., brought together industry experts to equip feed mill professionals with practical tools to improve efficiency, safety and operational performance in an increasingly complex production environment.
During his regulatory update, Gary Huddleston, director of feed manufacturing and regulatory affairs at the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), highlighted improved safety rates across the feed industry along with several key legislative developments, including the Innovative Feed Enhancement and Economic Development Act, Pet Food Uniform Regulatory Reform Act, Securing American Agriculture Act, No IRIS Act and Sound Science for Farmers Act. He also outlined regulatory activity across multiple agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Pat Leur, territory manager at Scott Equipment Co., and Matt Howell, regional maintenance manager at Aviagen, highlighted the importance of preventive and predictive maintenance programs in feed operations. Leur emphasized that consistent mixer performance depends on a simple but disciplined maintenance schedule — daily through quarterly — paired with proper sampling techniques, accurate labeling and awareness of common causes of mixing failures such as overfilling or improper mix sequencing. Howell focused on predictive maintenance, sharing Aviagen's implementation of a digital system across 14 facilities to improve asset health, labor efficiency and decision-making.
As part of his "Data at the Feed Mill" case study presentation, Nicholas Sorgen, continuous improvement data analyst at Aviagen, discussed how large volumes of daily data — from batching, pelleting and receiving — can be leveraged to improve efficiency and decision-making. He explained that batching reports alone can reveal key metrics such as recipe timing, tons produced, phase durations and bin performance, and through coding, he can pinpoint where time is lost or gained, such as delays caused by equipment issues. Looking ahead, Sorgen aims to expand data usage to monitor temperature trends, startup times, cooler efficiency and optimal equipment performance, ultimately enabling more precise diagnostics and optimization across feed mill operations.
