Informal Nutrition Symposium 2023: Challenges in supply chain and ingredient quality

In the last 3 years, worldwide challenges (war, supply chain difficulties and continuing inefficiencies occurring since the pandemic) beyond those of the environment (higher temperatures than normal, excess rain and flooding or extreme and long-lasting drought) have had an immense effect on ingredient prices and their accessibility in different regions. For animal nutritionists, ingredient prices, quality and accessibility have been central to least-cost diet formulation and a key concern because diet costs are the highest single cost of production of animal products. Other global issues related to changes in corporate approaches as well as consumer concerns to achieving sustainability, evolving cropping and processing shifts with biofuels, are affecting the supply and quality of raw materials for feed production. Although these factors are outside of the control of the nutritionist, being aware of the implications of these pressures and discerning trends for the future can help our resiliency against the potential shocks for the poultry feed industry. The 2023 Informal Nutrition Symposium examined factors influencing raw material supply, availability and quality, as well as re-examining current usage level of macro- and micro-minerals and vitamins in order to prepare nutritionists for changes that are occurring and that will probably be with us into the future.