IRVINE’S GROUP IN AFRICA

Serving clients of all sizes across Sub-Saharan Africa, Irvine’s Group operates through several specialised and dedicated divisions based in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, Tanzania and South Africa.

Irvine’s Zimbabwe:

Original home of the company and still its largest base, the Zimbabwe business focuses on hatching day old chicks, layer egg production, feed processing and meat processing. The unit has grown from a single room in a home to producing around one million Cobb day-old chicks a week, processing 300,000 birds per week and producing four million table eggs per week.

Irvine’s Mozambique:

The second country the group moved into, Mozambique represents a prolific hatching operation. Irvine’s Mozambique has invested in a high-tech hatchery that currently produces 240,000 chickens per week and supplies over 1,500 tonnes of feed per month.

Irvine’s Botswana:

Has grown into a large breeder farm and hatchery producing over 300,000 Cobb 500 chicks for local growers. A new feed production unit is currently being set up by Irvine’s Botswana.

Irvine’s Tanzania:

The newest addition to Irvine’s Group portfolio, comprising a breeder and hatchery operation producing 220,000 chicks per week and supplying feed to local growers.

Irvine’s Africa:

The specialist procurement and distribution unit of Irvine’s Group, helping clients large and small to manage their supply chain operations through custom-made solutions. Focused on the supply of the following range of products: livestock and poultry nutrition, animal health and hygiene, equipment, packaging and custom procurement. This business specialises in logistics and all Irvine’s products can be acquired and shipped through this business.

Cobb Africa:

Irvine’s is the oldest distributor of Cobb chickens in the world, and through the Cobb Africa brand is the key supplier of parent stock for Sub-Saharan Africa (selling around 2,000,000 parent stock chickens a year). Parent stock are supplied from both within Africa and Europe, giving the business an important element of flexibility.

Producing safe feed with Sal CURB® and TOXFIN™

Safe feed is essential to be able to produce safe food for human consumption. Contaminated feed and food may cause serious illnesses or even death of the animals or humans that consume it. Pathogenic bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. coli, may be transferred to animals via feed and thus feed mill and feed hygiene is a critical step in securing the feed safety chain.

Although certain heating processes, such as pelleting and hygienisation, will kill bacteria, recontamination may occur during conveyance, transport and storage of feed. Preventative steps and actions are thus needed to prevent feed recontamination and ensure feed safety.

Physical cleaning and treatment of production areas, storage areas and trucks (including feed compartments) plays a critical role in preventing recontamination of feed. This process involves the application of activated, dry antimicrobial products, such as Sal CURB® CD Dry using the Kemin Powder Duster system, to critical control points throughout the production lines to reduce the levels of bacteria present to acceptable levels. The use of a focused schedule and monitoring, tailored to each production systems unique product flow and risks, can ensure successful management of these risks.

To ensure sustained feed safety, from production until feeding, in-feed antimicrobial additives, such as Sal CURB® S Dry or Liquid, can be added during mixing to facilitate the management of these risks. Kemin’s range of proven anti-microbial feed additives can be safely added to both raw materials and feed to provide effective microbial risk management, as well as ensuring nutrient and quality preservation.

Fungi and moulds are ubiquitous and therefore the formation of mycotoxins can occur in all agricultural commodities, under appropriate field or storage conditions, throughout the animal feed supply chain. Highly contaminated raw materials and feed can result in severe health and performance losses due to mycotoxicosis and even low-level mycotoxin ingestion over time can cause an array of metabolic disorders, resulting in reduced animal productivity and performance. Long periods of exposure to mycotoxins increase the risk of possible negative effects in animals, due to prolonged liver detoxification processes, microbial population changes and reduced immune function.

Mycotoxin binders can be used to reduce or neutralise the potential negative effects of mycotoxins in your animal herds or flocks, allowing their natural performance to be achieved. TOXFIN™ is a unique, nondigestible mycotoxin binder designed for broad spectrum mycotoxin binding, with targeted binding to ensure high binding and retention capacity throughout the digestive tract. It contains active adsorbents, which effectively bind the most significant mycotoxins in African climates, namely Aflatoxins and Ochratoxins. Our range of products, programmes and services, combined with years of experience offer tailored solutions to meet any of your feed safety needs.