Following a well-established tradition, DSM hosted its annual European Poultry Tour in April 2011 in five different cities: Bologna (Italy), Bremen (Germany), Barcelona (Spain), Birmingham (UK) and Nantes (France) between 5 and 14 April 2011.

With an impressive range of guest speakers and DSM professionals, the 2011 tour captured the pulse of modern times and needs. The company's aim was not only to inform industry professionals about the latest developments within DSM, but also to offer them an educational opportunity, highlighting new and innovative technologies and flagging current industry trends.

The tour is also a great opportunity for DSM to unveil the new corporate image and newly established global strategy towards three great goals, under our DSM philosophy: Bright Science. Brighter Living^TM.

Focus on bright and sustainable poultry production

Entitled Towards a Bright & Sustainable Poultry Production, the 2011 event embraces topics of interest related to the European poultry industry. Lectures are therefore divided into three main categories: health, nutrition and management.

Lectures on bird health cover the majority of issues that industry health professionals face daily in European poultry production. Adapted to country specifications, they focused on:

• current digestive disorders
• control and prevention of Campylobacter infection
• factors affecting pad dermatitis in broilers and turkeys, and
• the incidence of 'black bone syndrome' in Europe.

According to Diane Newell of Foodborne Zoonoses Consultancy UK, campylobacteriosis remains a major public health issue in the EU, resulting in about 10 million illnesses with an estimated €2 billion cost per annum. Between 20 and 30 per cent of human cases are attributable to the handling and consumption of poorly cooked poultry. Overall, up to 80 per cent of cases are attributable to Campylobacter intestinal colonisation in poultry.

In the EU, about 70 per cent of broiler flocks produced are colonised with these organisms. To address this problem, intervention strategies need to be introduced at all stages throughout the farm-to-fork chain. Chicks are hatched Campylobacter-free, but are quickly infected through horizontal transmission from environmental exposure. For indoor-reared birds, the consistent and rigorous application of biosecurity and hygiene protocols is essential to maintain campylobacter-free flocks. For free-range flocks, biosecurity alone can never be sufficiently implemented to exclude these organisms.

Complementary on-farm interventions are therefore required to reduce the susceptibility of birds to infection or to reduce the level of colonisation in birds at slaughter. Among the interventions currently available, the use of some organic acids as a water/feed additive is the most promising, although poorly documented. Several alternative interventions, including bacteriophages, bacterocins and vaccines, are currently under research and may provide long-term solutions.

The tour's presentation on nutrition focus is on feed formulation using combinations of enzymes. The addition of exogenous enzymes to poultry diets represents the greatest opportunity to improve the effectiveness of poultry feeding. Poultry nutrition consultant, Rick Kleyn, examined:

• what classes of enzymes are available
• their mode of action, and
• how they interact with each other and other ingredients or additives used in the diet.

Several factors confound the best attempts to evaluate an enzyme, or several enzymes for that matter. Choosing and evaluating different enzymes or commercial products is not straightforward and require guidelines for nutritionists. Formulating diets using an enzyme, or a cocktail of several enzymes, can be achieved in a number of different ways. These include simply adding enzymes to the diet, assigning matrix values to an enzyme to model the expected 'lift' brought about by an enzyme, adding an expected improvement to the nutrient values of the various ingredients used in the formulation, and/or reducing the feed specifications of the diets to be formulated. A combination of all of these methods is another possibility. Nutritionists must understand each of these methods and their shortcomings, and some guidelines are offered in this regard.

The emergence of a new commercial amino acid, valine, and how it can help reduce dietary crude protein and improve animal performance, while reducing nitrogen excretion in the environment, is another topic of discussion. In addition, the tour presented an update on the current needs of vitamins in poultry and finally, guidelines on practical means of reducing feed cost with the use of enzymes without sacrificing animal performance and profitability.

Lectures on management, meanwhile, featured the quality of the day-old-chick in a presentation by Juan Carlos Abad, Technical Director of Cobb Spain, in Italy and Germany, and by Kate Barger, Quality Assurance Manager of Cobb Europe Ltd. Presentation highlights included:

• the impact of breeder nutrition, air flow and temperature during incubation, egg hygiene, hatchery hygiene, and stress on the performance and livability of chicks, and
• areas of concern that may lead to more bacterial contamination of the chick, particularly due to Escherichia coli infection.

Although the total incubation and brooding time has not changed, the total number of days for broiler grow-out has decreased from 60+ days to less than 35 days in the past two decades. What happens in the first three days post-hatch greatly determines lifetime performance. To this end, the quality of day-old chicks is critical to the success of broiler production. However, many factors have increased the stress on the incubation process and on the development of the day-old chick. These include: an increase in size and automation of most hatcheries, the emphasis on increasing treatments in the hatchery for day-old chicks, many times without the use of antibiotics, and efforts to reduce the total days of grow-out for the broiler while maintaining the same target body weight.

Other management-related topics focus on the pigmentation of broilers, including the achievement of perfect skin pigmentation in broilers to meet current local market demands, and the current status of turkey production in Europe.

DSM workshops for hands-on training on using innovative products

In Spain and France, the tour programme included hands-on workshops. The Spanish workshop featured two modules: evaluation of skin pigmentation in broilers and evaluation of the incidence of black bone syndrome.

The workshop is associated with the correct use of DSM's pigmentation additive, Carophyll®, and its correct use according to local market conditions – especially in locations such as Spain where excessive summer heat interferes with the bird's ability to deposit enough carotenoids in its skin to achieve optimal pigmentation for the Spanish market.

In France, four modules were each associated with a DSM product, with the aim of educating end-users on how best to use the innovative technologies associated with them in order to increase farming profitability. Modules included:

• Crina Poultry Plus®, a blend of benzoic acid and essential oils that helps stabilise intestinal microflora resulting in improved gut health
• the use of the new protease Ronozyme® ProAct that confers net feed cost savings in the range of one Euro cent per bird, a unique achievement among current commercial proteases
• the use of HyoD®, an innovative and advanced form of vitamin D and how it can be used to improve carcass characteristics, and
• how MaxiChick^TM, a source of CAROPHYLL Red 10% (canthaxanthin) in the role of antioxidants and HyoD can improve the quality of day-old chicks.

In essence, this full programme offered the very latest developments from DSM's worldwide network of research efforts and commercial applications.

New image, new focus for Bright Science. Brighter Living

As part of this year's Poultry European Tour, DSM introduced its new company brand, including our new tagline and logo. The new tag line is: Bright Science. Brighter Living.

The new brand symbolizes the transition of DSM from a chemical into a life sciences company active in health, nutrition and materials. The new brand reflects not only on the overall positioning of the company, but it also stands for the DSM strategy, culture and the way DSM wants its diversity of employees to work together to create brighter lives for people today and for generations to come.

Feike Sijbesma, CEO/Chairman of the DSM Managing Board, said: "With the portfolio restructuring completed, with our new strategy that focuses on growth, with the culture change on the road, and with our One DSM philosophy, this is the time to mark the new DSM, internally and externally."

The new logo conveys brightness and dynamic movement, with the mix and overlay of colors representing the diversity of DSM people and the unique combination of DSM global talents and technologies, working together to create innovative and sustainable solutions in a variety of businesses (nutrition, health and materials).