Providing enough affordable protein for eight billion people is a challenge. An even greater challenge is how to respect the health and welfare of animals and ensure responsible use of antibiotics, while protecting our environment. We need to do more with less to reduce our ecological footprint while ensuring food security, food safety, and animal welfare - we need functional feed additives, such as probiotics.

Consumer behavior is drastically changing as consumers adopt a holistic health and self-care approach that starts at prevention and ends at treatment. In this context, food choices are considered a backbone of a modern, healthy lifestyle. This development paves new ways for animal farming with opportunities and threats for all market players. Increasing importance of animal welfare and the reduction of antibiotic utilization in animal feed led to new challenges for the animal farming industry.

Get an overview on our functional feed additives.

At Evonik we understand the close link and interaction between animal nutrition and animal health that affects the well-being and performance of the animals.

Diseases, environmental factors, and some feed ingredients negatively impact the intestinal microbial balance of farm animals. They influence the immune system and the physiology of animals. An overstimulation of the inflammatory response, or a dysbiosis can result in different disorders. These can ultimately impair the animal’s feed efficiency, growth, and well-being. Furthermore, in many cases they cause economic losses for the farmers. At the same time, reproduction and growth are energy demanding for all farm animals.  Supporting the animals with functional feed additives, for example probiotics,  to get most out of their feed is essential for animal farmers to ensure the profitability of their farm and the well-being of their animals.

Read more about the background of probiotics in animal feed.

Our probiotics and other functional feed additives improve the overall condition of the animals and help farmers to improve the quality of their products, the profitability of their business and solve sustainability challenges at the same time.

We constantly expand our portfolio of probiotics and functional feed additives and increase our scientific expertise in animal health and animal farming to help you meet todays and tomorrow’s challenges and to support your business.

Torben Gosvig Madsen is looking forward to discussing any topic related to functional feed additives such as probiotics with you. Simply give him a call, drop him a line or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Probiotics are live microorganisms – or ‘good’ bacteria – that can be added to animal feed to provide health benefits to farm animals, through improved gut health. By improving the intestinal microbial balance of the animal, probiotics can boost growth and performance as well as prevent disease by strengthening the immune system. All of which can have a positive effect on the health and wellbeing of the animal.

The use of probiotics in animal nutrition has increased significantly over the past decade. Probiotics are used in animal livestock feeds for swine, poultry, and aquaculture. And with rising global demand for animal protein and restrictions on the use of antibiotics as growth promoters, their usage is forecast to grow even further.

Animal-feed probiotics are commercially produced and available in both liquid and solid forms. The most common probiotic bacteria strains in animal feeds include Lactobacillus, Bacillus, Streptococcus, Pediococcus, Enterococcus, Bifidobacterium, and Propionibacterium.