Nutreco Exporation team - Nutreco Corporate

Dr. David Bravo

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.

Dr. Emma Wall

Dr. Emma Wall has been Director of Discovery for Phytotechnology within the Nutreco Exploration team since January 1, 2022. Emma manages the Phytotechnology Centre of Excellence and 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.

Lucia Luijben

Lucia Luijben has been Exploration Manager as part of the Nutreco Exploration team since January 1, 2022. She drives the process of exploring new technology areas and partners for the development of novel feed additive solutions.

Lucia joined Nutreco in 2019 as Investment Associate in the NuFrontiers team. As part of NuFrontiers, she managed the team’s lead flow, identifying and evaluating technology companies in livestock and aquaculture that Nutreco could potentially partner up with and invest in.

Before joining Nutreco she worked on a biotech start-up and as a technology consultant. She obtained a master’s degree in Biotechnology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Dr. Yanming Han

Yanming has been Discovery Director Microtechnology within the Nutreco Exploration team since May 2022. He leads the discovery activities for Nutreco’s Microtechnology program, which involves everything from the upstream activities of defining and discovering new solutions, all the way through to the development of these solutions into products.

Yanming joined Nutreco after completing a post-doctoral fellowship in molecular biotechnology, and spent over 20 years in Canada and the Netherlands, working across animal species and continents in feed additive and nutrition research and development, in close collaboration with leading academic groups all over the world. He holds a Ph.D. in animal nutrition with a focus on enzyme discovery and application.

Melchior de Bruin, DVM MSc

Melchior has been Development & Deployment Manager within Nutreco Exploration since June of 2022. He joined Nutreco for the first time in 2021 as global programme manager on the Selko team.

Before that, Melchior worked in the field as a specialised veterinarian for poultry (and aquaculture) for almost eight years. During his time as practicing veterinarian, he was active as an international consultant for poultry, lecturer at two institutes and a project lead in field studies for pharmaceutical- and feed additive companies. Melchior holds a degree in veterinary medicine and public health from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Dr. Karin Berger

Karin is Phytotechnology Discovery Director at Nutreco Exploration. She and her team are based in Switzerland and engage in the discovery, exploration and characterization of plants and their compounds aiming to create solutions for the animal industry.

Karin has 25 years of experience and a broad background in botany, pharmacognosy, phytochemistry and pharmacology. Her professional career has been dedicated to research in medicinal plants and the development of plant-based products for diverse applications, including phytopharmaceuticals, food supplements, feed and feed additives, and cosmetics. Together with Bernd Büter, she started Vitaplant and later breeding botanicals international. She lectures at the University of Basel, the Bern University of Applied Sciences, and the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich.

Dr. Bernd Büter

Bernd is Director of Nutreco Exploration’s Phytotechnology Program and Centre of Medicinal Plant Solutions in Switzerland. He has over 20 years of experience in plant breeding, plant variety registration, biotechnology, plant propagation, multi-location-multi-accession field trials and commercial cultivation in various climates. Before joining Nutreco, Bernd founded Vitaplant, dedicated to the rational use of medicinal plants and the production of plant raw materials. He ran the company as CEO for 15 years before selling it to a leading Swiss phytopharmaceutical company.

Bernd has lived and worked in Europe, as well as India, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Kenya, Bolivia and the U.S. Bernd studied Biology in Hannover and Agronomy in Kassel and did a PhD in Plant Biotechnology at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich.

Dr. Marine Dewez

Marine joined Nutreco Exploration as Development & Deployment Manager in March 2023. She strengthens the Nutreco Exploration team with her major curiosity about statistics and a strong will to bring our industry to the next level. Marine has a background in monogastric nutrition and genetics. She did her PhD with a breeding company, and later worked for a number of feed, premix and feed additives companies, including Royal Agrifirm Group in Belgium and Nuproxa in Switzerland. In her most recent position, she had the opportunity to broaden her scope to ruminants, aquaculture and pet nutrition.

In her role as Development & Deployment Manager, Marine works with the businesses across Nutreco to develop NutEx’s new ultra-specialty ingredients into products and launch them to our customers.

Jennifer Maurin

Jennifer joined Nutreco Exploration as Development & Deployment Manager in June 2023. She brings to the Nutreco Exploration team her strong background as an engineer in agronomy and animal science, with a specialisation in hygiene and antimicrobial resistance in feed and food chains. Jennifer joined the feed industry in 2009, working for a leading Swiss feed additives manufacturer in roles from Global Phytogenic Product Manager to International Business Developer for Botanicals. In 2020, Jennifer joined a specialty micro-minerals provider as Marketing & Sales Director, where she recommended unique applications focusing on gut health and learned about new techniques to shape the microbiota and the management of environmental impacts.

In her role as Development & Deployment Manager, Jennifer works with the businesses across Nutreco to develop the Nutreco Exploration new ultra-specialty ingredients into products and launch them to our customers.