Agri-Food Europe Preview: dsm-firmenich Balances Innovation with Supply Chain Resilience

Expana’s Agri-Food Europe event returns to Amsterdam on February 25-26. Hundreds of senior decision-makers and 60+ expert speakers will discuss trends, risks, and disruptions reshaping agri-food markets.   

On February 26, Kevin Truyts, Global Sales Director Vitamins Business Unit at dsm-firmenich will be part of an industry panel, which will dive deep into what the challenges are in the animal nutrition sector in the context of the major geopolitical shifts the world has seen over the past year.    

“My central argument is that industry and governments must take a hard look at its dependence on critical raw materials, especially feed additives that are essential for high-quality animal nutrition and, ultimately, for ensuring a stable food supply for our population,” Truyts told Expana ahead of the event.    

“Our industry has traditionally optimized for maximum production efficiency at the lowest input cost. However, ‘lowest cost’ can no longer be the only consideration. We must balance costs with growing supply-chain risks, and even more importantly, with the broader issue of food security in Europe and the Western world,” he added.    

Reducing Dependence on Critical Feed Additives

“To illustrate, the EU imports around 70% of its feed vitamins from one single producing country. For vitamins such as vitamin C and vitamin B9 (folic acid), we are fully dependent on non‑EU suppliers. The situation in the US is even more acute: relying on almost 100% imported vitamins, as domestic production is limited essentially to Hy‑D®,” he went on to say. “Both the EU and the US are now exploring strategies to reduce this vulnerability. Ensuring resilient, diverse, and strategically secure supply chains will be critical for the future of our sector.”   

Truyts argued that dsm-firmenich is also very active in terms of advising customers on supply chain resilience in the face of geopolitical disruption by evaluating their supply chain flows of raw materials, regardless of their volumes, and map the risk attached to it.    

“Are they buying from one single source? Do they buy from just one single country of origin? What alternatives are available and what would it take to change a single sourcing to multiple-source supply?” he said. “We also collaborate closely with different industry associations like FEFAC in Europe, AFIA and IFEEDER in the US to objectively call out those risks in very concrete numbers and examples. With six key production plants for vitamins and carotenoids in Europe and two in the US, we can offer real value in terms of risk mitigation of key supplies.”     

“For example, when new trade tariffs were announced last year, we could re-route some product flows to minimize the tariff impact. If geopolitical tensions led to specific supply disruptions in certain regions, we could do the same to safeguard supplies for our customers. Against that perspective, a large US-based integrator customer decided to shift on a long-term basis a significant part of their vitamin supply to Europe to secure their supply of critical nutrients. In fact, we see a general tendency for US customers to anticipate and secure the limited vitamin production capacity outside of China earlier than EU customers,” he added.  

Balancing Cost Competitiveness with Innovation

Asked about what the most critical capabilities organizations like dsm-firmenich must develop or strengthen over the next months to remain competitive, Truyts argued that first, “we must stay relentlessly focused on cost competitiveness. We are addressing this through ongoing process optimization and leaner operations, while maintaining our high standards for product quality, worker safety, and environmental performance,” he said.    

“Secondly, we need to keep innovating. dsm-firmenich Animal Nutrition & Health (ANH) invests considerable sums in R&D, which fuels new product innovations as well as new digital and precision services.”   

Truyts argued that pressure from downstream players (retailers and food service companies) is increasing rapidly as 2030 approaches. “For many retailers, animal protein represents up to 40% of Scope 3 emissions; for some global food service companies, it can be as high as 70–80%. They are now asking suppliers for accurate footprint mapping and carbon transition plans,” he said, adding that the feed industry and farmers have the greatest lever for change, as up to 80% of animal protein’s carbon footprint originates there. “Productivity improvements and feed reformulation can deliver very low, or even negative, costs of carbon abatement, making them highly attractive to the value chain,” he commented.    

Truyts added: “A recent collaboration in the Netherlands between our ANH business, a feed producer, an egg packer, and a retailer illustrates this perfectly: through nutritional improvements alone, they achieved a 17% reduction in the egg’s carbon footprint, with no additional cost to consumers. It’s scalable, impactful, and directly supports retailers’ Scope 3 reduction targets.”    

Precision Nutrition, Regulation and AI-Driven Resilience

And finally, in Truyts’s view, regulatory capability is critical. “We have strong in‑house expertise that helps us not only anticipate and comply with evolving regulations but also support customers and stakeholders in understanding, interpreting, and implementing them effectively,” he said. 

Regarding the challenge of delivering higher nutritional value while managing volatile raw material costs, Truyts argued that the ANH business helps customers navigate tightening regulations and reformulation pressures by focusing on precision, predictability, and partnership.    

“As Europe raises the bar on compliance, our science-based nutrient solutions and digital formulation tools allow producers to meet new standards without inflating cost,” he said. “By improving nutrient utilization through enzymes, vitamins, carotenoids and eubiotics, we enable diets that deliver the same or higher performance at lower inclusion rates, protecting feed economics even as rules change.”    

“When raw material markets are volatile, we rely on data driven modeling and robust nutrient equivalency values to give customers clarity and flexibility. This lets them reformulate confidently using broader ingredient options while maintaining consistency and animal performance,” he also said, adding that the company’s mycotoxin management portfolio offers a solution for protecting animal health.    

dsm-firmenich is also using AI technology to deliver sharper decisions and real value on the farm via predictive insights, “turning complex livestock data into clear, real‑time actions that improve herd health and productivity. And with a fully governed, enterprise‑ready data and AI stack, we roll out innovations faster and more reliably across all our solutions,” he said.     

dsm-firmenich’s Global Sales Director of the Vitamins Business Unit also shared his awareness about the challenge of reconciling the pressure for cost reduction with the investment required for innovation in an uncertain environment. “Balancing these priorities is challenging because they often seem at odds. Yet doing both is essential to stay ahead of the competition. Maintaining a strong cost position requires constant monitoring and a willingness to challenge established assumptions,” he commented.    

“At the same time, innovation isn’t limited to new products entering the market: it also takes place within our production processes, where we continuously aim for best‑in‑industry performance. Advancements in vitamin formulation and improvements in bacterial strains remain key focus areas, enabling us to innovate while strengthening efficiency and resilience.”