“An important point to remember about our
feed business is that almost t wo-thirds of the
production is dedicated to our integrated
chain,” Mr Zanin said. “From this, we obtain
the experience that we make available to the
‘free market,’ meaning those customers who
are outside the integrations. In fact, there are
more than 600,000 farmers who buy their
feeds from our company on a free-market
basis, in addition to 2,200 farms that are
connected in the integrated chain.
“In my view, it is the experience combined with our attention to safety, quality and
service in the form of technical assistance
that are the principal factors permitting
Veronesi to confirm its leadership in the
Italian market. Safety and quality can never
be forgotten, of course. We explain to every
visitor that we check everything in our feed
manufacturing activities. That means checking the suppliers of the resources we use,
checking the raw materials, running constant
checks on the processing activities in our
seven plants and carrying out quality control
on the feeds we produce.
“Feed is the first step in the food chain.
In order to have quality in the food, we need
the best quality in all raw materials we use.
That is why we are inflexible, checking all
the raw materials we receive [by trucks, by
train or by cargo boats where possible] in
order to avoid the presence of undesired
substances and to be sure that the feed we
give to our animals or we sell to the farmers
is the best possible.”
Feed International
asked Mr Zanin how
much these manufacturing activities at the
company had changed
over the past five years.
Farmers are becoming
more professional and
demand a greater professionalism from their
suppliers, he replied. The
feed manufacturer is not
simply a supplier, it is
more a partner for the
farmer. Its suggestions
to improve farm results
on both zootechnical and
economic levels must
be good.
“For us, it is an absolutely strategic
necessity to have successful farmers. Both
of us need to take a positive attitude and to
have trust in the future, which is possible
only with good results. What this means
most of all in practice is that the weight of
the services you provide related to the feed
is becoming more and more important. In
these modern times, you could produce
in the best way and yet it might still not be
enough without the services behind it.”
Massimo Zanin, managing director of the feed business division at Veronesi, says it is strategically necessary to have successful farmers.
High cost of commodities
How much, we wondered, is the company’s feed division being affected by the
changes in the world prices of grains and
of oil for fuel? Mr Zanin started by pointing out that the last 18 months or so have
been hard for Italy’s livestock farmers, who
