Lallemand’s animal nutrition business in New Zealand merges with Nutritech

Nutritech International and Lallemand NZ Ltd (trading as Vitec Nutrition) have announced they are to merge their businesses effective from 1st June 2016, creating New Zealand’s largest supplier of animal nutrition and forage additive technologies.

Nutritech International was founded in 1915, celebrating 100 years of advice and support for New Zealand farmers in 2015. The company has been under the family ownership of the McNeill family for three generations until a management buyout in April 2010. Nutritech distributes a wide range of animal nutrition products as well as forage additives, liquid fertilisers and maize seeds to meet the needs of NZ farmers and the animal feed industry. Nutritech manufactures premixes and silage additives at its Auckland and Rolleston ISO 9001 and GMP accredited plants.  Nutritech offers a full range of “off the shelf” products, plus it has the flexibility to manufacture custom blends for individual farmer’s requirements. Nutritech has 24 employees and offers technical and sales support from Southland to Northland.

Vitec Nutrition was founded in 1997 to supply a range of feed additives and nutritional advice to the NZ feed industry. In 2008 Lallemand Animal Nutrition acquired Vitec and in 2011 the Vitec Nutrition legal entity was merged into Lallemand NZ Limited. Vitec distributes Lallemand’s portfolio of LEVUCELL^® yeasts & Sil-All forage additives, Pancosma’s palatants and trace minerals, premixes, by-pass fats, ionophores, minerals, rumen modifiers & other functional supplements.

The merged business, which will be called Nutritech International Limited will remain  majority controlled and owned by its New Zealand based management team and shareholders, with Lallemand Animal Nutrition having a minority strategic shareholding.

Tony Manning, currently Managing Director of Nutritech will become the CEO of the merged business. Shaun Benefield becomes National Sales Manager, Alun Faulkner becomes National Technical Manager and Adam Clay becomes the Ruminant and Forage Technical Services Manager. Supporting the executive team are consultant Nutritionist, Dr Julian Waters and non-executive director, Alex Turney (Managing Director Oceania for Lallemand Animal Nutrition).

Adam Clay will remain directly employed by Lallemand Animal Nutrition but will be seconded to the merged business to support the growth of sales of our forage and ruminant feed additives portfolio.

Commenting on the announcement, Tony Manning, CEO of Nutritech International said: “The merger of Nutritech and Vitec will benefit our customers by enabling us to offer them a wider range of market leading animal nutrition solutions and forage technologies from both Lallemand Animal Nutrition as well as other leading global manufacturers, all fully backed up by extensive research and development. Furthermore, the greater scale of the business will enable us to provide species specialists to deliver a real depth of expertise in nutritional solutions and field based technical support across all major livestock species.”

Tim Pollock, Director of Strategic Development for Lallemand Animal Nutrition added: “The merger of Vitec Nutrition and Nutritech will secure long term and cost effective distribution of our animal nutrition portfolio across the New Zealand marketplace despite the current challenging market environment for dairy producers.”