USSEC conducted a soybean meal quality conference in collaboration with the Moroccan Feed Association (AFAC), the oldest member of FISA Federation, on April 9, followed by a one-on-one workshop at two leading poultry industry companies. The two companies included Morocco’s largest feed mill, Alf Sahel, and the Sofalim mill of the country’s largest turkey producer Maroc Dinde.
19 nutritionists, feed formulators, and quality managers representing mills of different capacities attended the conference. USSEC consultant V. (Ravi) Ravindran, Professor of Poultry Science at the Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences at Massey University, presented the nutritional advantages of U.S. soybean meal focusing on metabolizable energy and digestible amino acids profile.
In his second presentation, “Nutrition of the Newly Hatched Broiler Chick,” the visiting expert emphasized the importance of highly digestible amino acids and protein sources to nutrition, immunity, growth, and chick development.
The participants and speaker discussed quality issues, learned more about the nutritional specificities and quality of U.S. soybean meal and differences with other origin meals. They were convinced to use appropriate quality control analysis methods and nutrient profile for U.S. soybean meal.
The discussions held during the one-on-one workshop at Alf Sahel between the visiting expert escorted by the local USSEC consultant and the nutrition team focused on current nutritional issues such as alternative solutions to antibiotics in corn and soybean meal diets and the importance of phase feeding. Both visitors highlighted the need for high quality feed and ingredients such as U.S. hipro meal to obtain top performance for broiler and turkey production at Sofalim feed mill.
By providing technical assistance, USSEC builds loyalty among end users of U.S. Soy. The presentations and workshops highlighted the superiority of the amino acid profiles of U.S. soybean meal compared to meals of other origins to optimize feed formulation. The ultimate goal was to inform customers on how to differentiate U.S. soybean meal from others and use appropriate quality analysis and nutrient profile.
Industrial compound feed production amounted to 4.3 million metric tons (MMT) in Morocco with 75 percent going to the poultry industry in 2017, the main user of soybean meal. This market has so far used about 200,000 tons of U.S. soybean meal.