Animal nutrition company Hamlet Protein, based in Denmark, is growing at a fast pace. All About Feed’s editor Emmy Koeleman recently spoke to Søren Bank, the company’s chief commercial officer, to learn more about the secret behind the company.
A good example of the company’s growth is the recent opening of an office in Qingdao, China, to serve its large Chinese customer base better. These come next to existing production plants in Denmark and in the United States and an ever-growing staff, now amounting to 120 people and a sales growth of 15-20% every year between 2009 and 2015.
In this context, Mr Bank also points to the fact that the company is actively looking at unconventional partnerships. In the interview in All About Feed, a sister title to Pig Progress, he said, “Animal nutrition is part of the total management of a farm. If your goal is antibiotic reduction or increasing efficiency or animal health, more elements are important to consider. This is why we have joined forces with five other companies under then name ‘Danish Farm Concept’.”
He continued to say, “Companies in this concept are specialists in pig breeding, nutrition, housing, management and climate. Together we can help clients more efficiently and we offer projects to investors. The idea is to take the forward thinking ideas from Denmark to other countries around the world to be a part in taking farm efficiency, animal health and diet formulation to the next level. This is the next phase for Hamlet Protein: further globalising of the company.”
Hamlet Protein has always focused on young animal nutrition, as its founder, Ole Kaae Hansen, invented a highly digestible protein made from soy. As young animals often have difficulties with digestion, this newly invented protein was ideal to include in the diet for piglets for example. The used technology is patented and the key criteria is a product that has a digestibility of over 90%.
“Having such as strong focus and strict criteria is our strength and we have always put our focus on this topic and didn’t go for the direction to broaden the product portfolio with more and more products. We simply discovered that young animal nutrition is the DNA of our company, so why not explore that expertise even more and stick to that expertise,” explained Mr Bank.