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Our speaker panel
During the opening event of Nutreco's Garden of the Future, we aim to inspire you and increase your knowledge about phytotechnology and it's potential to change the way we look at animal performance. We have gathered professionals within Nutreco as well as esteemed guest speakers to introduce you to the power of plants.
Plenary session: Welcome and introduction
Upon arrival at Nutreco's Garden of the Future, you will be welcomed in the auditorium for a plenary session. During this first part of the programme, we will navigate you through our company strategy and our purpose of Feeding the Future, specifically focusing on the plant kingdom. You will discover the unlimited possibilities of the power of plants and how we can shape it to build a brighter and more sustainable future.
We invited the speakers below to welcome you to the event.
David Blakemore
Nutreco
David joined Nutreco in 2022 as CEO of Trouw Nutrition, the company’s livestock feed business line, and member of Nutreco’s Management Board. With effect from June 1, 2024, David Blakemore will change his position and move into the role of CEO of Nutreco.
David has over 30 years of experience nurturing customer relationships, driving the commercial and innovation agendas and guiding operations and has established a strong track record of delivering results and building strong teams.
Workshop: Business intimacy
Co-development of market solutions at Nutreco
In everything we do within our Phytotechnology programme, your market needs and concerns are at the heart of our activities. During this workshop, we explain how we capture these needs, or animal performance challenges, and describe them as granular physiologic indications. We then gather information needed for the further selection of medicinal and functional plants by our discovery group. In this session, we also focus on the discovery-driven planning, unravelling the key steps to proper solution development.
To give you a perfect understanding and broader perspective, we are showcasing an example of our plant solution’s development process: from defining the need of today’s modern industry, to screening and selection of plant candidates, testing in animals up to commercialising a final solution.
The following speakers are looking forward to sharing their experiences with you.
Dr. Alex Obach
Skretting
Alex Obach has held the position of Director of Innovation at Skretting since July 2021 and is the head of Skretting Aquaculture Innovation (Skretting AI). Originally from Barcelona, Alex is a veterinarian with a Master in Aquaculture from the University of Girona (Spain) and a Ph.D. in fish pathology and immunology from the University of Western Brittany (France).
He started working at the Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre (ARC) in 1993 as a researcher, specializing in fish and shrimp health and nutrition. From May 2007 to July 2021, he was the Managing Director of Skretting ARC. He also served as a professor at the University of Barcelona (1995-1997) and worked as a technical director at Marine Harvest (2004-2007). Since June 2023, he has also been the president of the European Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Platform (EATiP), an organization dedicated to developing, supporting, and promoting technology and innovation in the aquaculture sector.
Workshop: Integrated intelligence
Discovery - Phytochemistry - Complex machine learning
How do we go from the immense plant kingdom to only a few candidates to help solve industry problems? We will share our discovery strategy and explain how we utilise our phytotechnology knowledge to narrow down our scope to a few promising candidates.
You will learn how our phyto-analysis unit plays a pivotal role in defining plant identity and chemotypes by constantly developing new analytical standards and analysis methods for plants never used before. This key understanding will then be used as input for the definition of the phytocomplexes, the mathematical modelling, and the consecutive domestication work. This includes screening of accessions from all over the world.
The following speakers will be hosting this interactive session.
Dr. David Bravo
Nutreco
As Chief Science Officer (CScO) of Nutreco, David created and now leads Nutreco Exploration. This involves the strategy, building and leading the team and creating and managing the programs.
David has a strong track record of innovating in the feed industry, having served in a variety of positions including leadership ones in feed, premix and feed additive companies like Pancosma in Switzerland, In Vivo NSA in France and Land O’Lakes in the United States. David studied nutrition, molecular physiology and physiology at universities in France; he is also an alum of Harvard Business School.
Workshop: End-to-End supply
Plant domestication and cultivation
Once we defined the unique candidates within the plant kingdom, it is important that our plant propagation steps and growing methods create exact replicas of the plant. How do we get from one single candidate to a million similar plants in the field?
During this workshop we touch back on the screening of accessions, and we will navigate through the development of the protocols and their execution. All these steps happen in close collaboration with plant nurseries, our network of growers, and establishment of global production locations. This workshop will end with a walk in our garden, where different botanical sections will illustrate the learnings of the day.
The following speakers are looking forward to explaining our vertical integration. We own the entire process, from discovery and development to scaling up production and stringent quality control.
Dr. Emma Wall
Nutreco
Dr. Emma Wall has been Director of Development and Deployment for Phytotechnology within the Nutreco Exploration team since January 1, 2022. Emma works directly with the business divisions to help bring novel, proprietary and relevant phytotechnologies to market.
Emma has been closely connected to agriculture since studying Animal Science at the University of Vermont. Then, after managing a herd of Jersey cows for two years, she went on to obtain her MS and PhD in Lactation Physiology followed by a post-doc in Immunology. Emma has been working in the feed additive industry for over ten years, with expertise in the physiology of phytochemicals and how they impact animal health and production. With personal experience in both science and application, Emma has a passion for not only for bringing effective solutions with known mechanisms, but also understanding customer needs and challenges and optimizing ROI when it comes to technology deployment.
Our commercial offering
Introduction to Fytera
After exploring the discovery and development process of our phytotechnology programme, get a chance to learn about our already available offering of phytogenic solutions: Fytera.
We have invited various world-renowned external guest speakers to address the science behind our phytocomplexes. Depending on your area of focus, we will divide the group per animal species (poultry, ruminant, or swine) to allow for intimate discussions with plenty of room for live interaction and questions.
The following guest speakers will be presenting.
Dr. Yanhong Liu
University of California (UC Davis)
Dr. Yanhong Liu is the Associate Professor of Animal Nutrition at the Department of Animal Science, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Davis (UC Davis). Before joining UC Davis, she worked with Dr. Hans H. Stein at University of Illinois as a postdoc from 2012 to 2015. Dr. Liu’s lab at UC Davis is cross-disciplinary, with a focus on deploying feed-based health technologies to improve animal health.
Her major research interest is to develop new dietary approaches that may promote disease resistance and performance of pigs by investigating the impacts of dietary supplements on gut physiology and immunity and systemic immunity of pigs, especially in post-weaned period. She is the recipient of the Hellman Fellowship Award (2019) and National Pork Board Swine Innovation Award (2012).
She received her BS in Biological Science and MS in Animal Science from China Agricultural University (China), and her PhD in Animal Nutrition from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Liu’s research is partially funded by feed and feed additive companies.
Selko Fytera - meet the team
Under the Fytera brand, Selko markets novel phytogenics that help solve the complex challenges modern farm animals face. Selko has made a long-term commitment to developing the phytogenic space. During the opening ceremony of Nutreco's Garden of the Future our team of passionate Fytera team members is looking forward to connecting with you to discuss how Fytera can support your business.
Dr. Sangeeta Singh
Selko
Hailing from India, Sangeeta got her Masters and PhD in plant cell biology from Sweden, followed by an MBA in the USA. She has been working in the feed additive industry for over 20 years, exploiting her experience from across three continents.
She started her career at Novus International, focusing on business development (innovations), successfully launching several feed additives into the feed industry. She also worked in product management, managing the mineral category, which is one of the market leaders in the industry. In 2014, she joined Phibro Animal health, managing feed additives, such as Probiotics, mycotoxin binders, and several yeast derived products. She joined Selko, the feed additive brand of Trouw Nutrition, in 2017, managing several Nutritional Solutions products over the years and is based in the USA.
In her current role as the Category Director for Phytogenics, she is responsible for two streams of Selko's phytogenic product lines- Fytera and AOmix. She and her team strive to bring Phytogenics with unicity into the market that can positively impact animal producers, ensuring sustainable business now and in the future.
Interested in Fytera?
At Selko, the feed additive brand of Trouw Nutrition, we harness the power of plants for animal production. Under the Fytera brand, we offer novel phytogenics, with validated mode of action, to support animal performance. Learn more about our product portfolio for poultry, swine and ruminants.
Questions about the opening?
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