8.1 How Nutreco's innovation teams support sustainability

Science-based innovation has always been at the heart of what we do. Our business lines excel at product- and service-focused research and development to support customers and set our industry forward in a more sustainable direction. We’ve added a focus on breakthrough innovation and investments over the past several years. This is opening us up to completely new markets and helping us reach the unprecedented level of innovation that will be required to achieve our purpose of Feeding the Future.

Sustainable innovation in products and services

Our product- and service-focused research and development takes place at business-line level through research centres and research farms across the globe. In 2022, the Skretting and Trouw Nutrition innovation teams continued implementing research to deliver products and other solutions that add value to our customers and advance the aquaculture and livestock industry in the most sustainable way. The teams tested new ingredients, as well as novel ingredients that can increase the raw material basket and flexibility in feed formulations. These ingredients will be used in new products planned for launch in 2023. This knowledge will help us to drive the development of the most cost-efficient nutritional solutions to optimise our species performance, health and welfare, while also having a stronger focus on the environmental (beyond only carbon footprint impact) and social impacts connected with the production of our feeds.

Aquaculture research and development at Skretting

Skretting has an innovation team of over 140 specialists, including 40 with PhDs, coming from more than 25 countries. Skretting's researchfocuses on 10 key species of fish and shrimp.

Skretting's Life Start segment continues building its position as a strategic segment for our aquaculture business line, and we expect to see relevant growth in the coming years. Its portfolio includes live feed, larval and starter feeds, as well as broodstock feed for all species (shrimp, salmonids, marine and freshwater fish).

In 2022, we extended the Skretting Bubble research facility by adding four laboratories, enabling the team to run activities on microbiology – to test if ingredients display antibacterial properties – fermentation and the production of hydrolysates, as well as cell culture experiments linked to a cell feed project underway with NuFrontiers. Skretting has also increased the scope of the techniques it can undertake. For example, the team has now run its first microarray analyses that allow us to screen the level of expression of all 50,000 genes in salmon and 25,000 genes in shrimp. Based on these results, Skretting was able to document the effect of some diets and find promising biomarkers to monitor the onset of disease. In addition, the team uses AI software to boost the amount of information it can get from studying tissues (biopsies) and help analyse more parameters in a cost- and time-efficient way.

Skretting opened its AI Guayas Research Station in Ecuador in 2022, the business line’s latest state- of-the-art station, fully dedicated to all stages
of shrimp production. This new facility enables Skretting to achieve simulations and evaluations around health and welfare parameters, as well as growth and feed efficiency. Another key focus area of the research here is the digestibility of new and existing feed ingredients and balanced diets. This, together with a solid product mix and the implementation of Skretting 360+ precision farming tools, supported by the acquisition of a controlling majority stake in Internet of Things (IoT) company Eruvaka, will enable Skretting to keep a leading position in the shrimp feed market in Ecuador and increase its presence in other markets, such as Asia and Australia.

Livestock research and development at Trouw Nutrition

Trouw Nutrition's research and development team is comprised of 240 employees, 27 of whom hold PhDs. Trouw Nutrition's research and development focuses on sustainable feed ingredients, swine, poultry and ruminant nutrition.

Trouw Nutrition's innovation strategy in swine, poultry and ruminant nutrition is focused on early life nutrition, healthy life, precision nutrition and sustainability. Our team in the livestock business line assesses innovation projects in the portfolio for their potential sustainability impact in early stages of development, using a list of criteria related to feed and food safety, animal welfare and health, climate and circularity, and social responsibility. Trouw Nutrition updated its sustainable-by-design approach in 2022 and follows it in the innovation process, seeking to create products and systems that minimise negative impacts and maximise positive impacts on animal health, welfare, environment and society.

Innovation projects underway at Trouw Nutrition that have a clear sustainability focus are the antibiotic reduction program (ABR) and the environmental footprint reduction program described earlier in this report. The ABR supports customers with a holistic approach – that includes
feed, farm and health management – to make the switch to a more responsible use of antibiotics easy and manageable. It comprises a well-integrated package of Trouw Nutrition’s product solutions and services and a procedure to reduce dependency onantibiotics in a step-by-step way, while maintaining or even improving the customers profitability.

Trouw Nutrition’s environmental footprint reduction program aims to help farmers reduce the carbon footprint of their animal products by utilising newly developed NutriOpt carbon footprint calculation tools, such as MyFeedPrint and MyMilkPrint for dairy producers, along with a package of Trouw Nutrition's product solutions. For swine, the team also uses the NutriOpt Swine Model to customise customers’ feeding strategies, using data analytics and predictive modelling, providing detailed information about the environmental impact of their feed programs. Trouw Nutrition plans to introduce footprint-reduction programs for broiler chickens
and layers in 2023.

To improve the sustainability and circularity of animal feed, a key area of focus for Trouw Nutrition is promoting and facilitating the use of by-products and former foodstuffs not suitable for human consumption. Trouw Nutrition Masterlab achieved a new innovation in this area with the launch of its new Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIR) calibration lines.
These enable swift assessments of the nutritional value of liquid food by-products, which are commonly used in swine feed. This helps farmers to understand the actual nutritional values of by-products that have a short lag time from being collected in food processing plants to being transported for use on farms. For more information on the use of by-products in feed, see Circular ingredients.

Chapters:

8.1 How Nutreco's innovation teams support sustainability

8.2 Propelling scientific progress into sustainable solutions

8.3 Partnering to develop tomorrow's feed and food business