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Expanding AB Dairy through acquisition

From the 2023 Annual Report

As the global population increases, the need to provide nutritious, affordable protein that can be produced sustainably has never been greater.

The dairy industry stands to benefit from this demand and milk, as one of the lowest-emitting and affordable animal proteins, is particularly well positioned. There is also ample scope to improve productivity through the integration of insights and technology to inform nutrition, genetics and feeding strategies. 

In the UK, data is routinely collected across a range of inputs, such as diet and genetics, and outputs such as milk production volumes and quality. However, this data is yet to be collated and interpreted in a way that gives farmers a deeper understanding of optimal dairy cow performance. Building on our 30 years’ experience supplying feed and providing nutritional expertise, we have acquired three businesses to help the industry respond to these challenges and enable more sustainableand profitable dairy farming.

Kite Consulting is a specialist dairy consultancy, providing practical and strategic advice on dairy farm performance across the food supply chain from farmers and food processors right through to retailers. Kite is known for its technical and business consultancy service, which supports dairy farmers in their efforts to improve the efficiency of their business and herd, and for its sustainability advisory service, which helps them reduce the carbon footprint of dairy production.

International Farm Comparison Network (IFCN) is a global dairy research network, providing globally comparable economic data and forecasts through partnerships with researchers, dairy companies and organisations in over 100 countries. Its dairy farm economics model is accepted as the global standard forcomparing and understanding dairy systems, helping to secure profitability and sustainability in dairy farming by enabling users to understand the drivers that contribute to better performance. 

National Milk Records (NMR) provides a range of milk quality, herd health and genomic testing services to farmers and milk buyers, as well as providing an independent source of data for third parties such as vets, farm consultants and breed societies. 

Data is used to provide the phenotypic database for UK genetic evaluation, and the milk recording database is used to provide the basis of food provenance schemes run by major supermarket retailers. 

Together, these businesses provide unrivalled capability to combine milk, health, genomics and dairy industry insights, as well as the ability to help farmers consistently use these insights to make more precise and timely decisions.

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