In a double effort to increase the awareness of U.S. Soy quality and transfer knowledge to European customers, the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) organized a two-day training dedicated to poultry feeding practices and management, with a focus on strategies to improve carcass and meat quality in modern broilers. A team of Romanian technical representatives was recruited from key poultry companies and joined the event held in Madrid, Spain during the third week of June.

U.S. soy customers’ team from Romania attended the USSEC training at the University of Madrid

Current modern broilers have been selected for decades for an increased feed efficiency and enhanced breast meat yield. This selection process has exerted marked changes in their body composition and in their nutritional requirements, with special regards to those of amino acids and proteins.

“The formulation of diets with an adequate amino acid profile is a critical step to better exploit the genetic potential of modern broiler chickens, which are characterized by rapid growth rate. Furthermore, amino acid nutrition plays a central role in animal health, welfare, and quality of poultry products, as well as in the environmental impact and sustainability of the poultry industry,” stated USSEC consultant Dr. Massimiliano Petracci during his presentations.

Dr. Massimiliano Petracci introduces the importance of the genetic potential and nutrition of modern broiler chickens

While nutrition remains key for profitable broiler production, the design of the feeding programs is gaining a growing importance in managing the issues related to the quality of modern broiler carcasses and meat. As such, adjusting the dietary amino acids to optimal level for modern broilers is a solution for today’s nutritionists to answer modern industry challenges such as reducing feed cost with changing amino acids level, changing dietary amino acids levels to increase breast meat, or changing the feeding regime to reduce the incidence of myopathies and metabolic disorders.

U.S. soybean meal has distinctive physical quality attributes: uniform light color and particle size

“Due to its excellent amino acids profile and higher digestibility compared to other origins, U.S. soybean meal should bring significant advantages in feed formulation and, indeed, in designing and optimizing the modern broilers feeding strategiesin orderto alleviate growth related disorders andmeat abnormalities in poultry meat such: white striping, wooden breast and so called ‘spaghetti meat,’” added USSEC consultant Dr. Gonzalo Mateos.

Dr. Gonzalo Mateos emphasized U.S. soybean meal’s amino acids digestibility and interacted with the European soy customers

The main message from the technical presentation was that with such ingredients, nutritionists can easily balance broiler formulas based on ideal protein concept and for specific amino acids requirements to match different feeding regimes in the effort to answer the challenges occurring from farming the fast-growing birds.

The USSEC event held at the University of Madrid, Spain reflected the U.S. soy industry’s commitment to support successful and sustainable poultry production with knowledge transfer and solutions that help European customers produce better broiler meat quality.