Feed enzymes

Feed enzymes have an important role to play in current farming systems. They can increase the digestibility of nutrients, leading to greater efficiency in the production of animal products such as meat and eggs. At the same time they can play a role in minimizing the environmental impact of increased animal production.

One of our latest products is a new phytase for animal feed. RONOZYME® P is the result of a joint development between our company and Novozymes A/S (previously known as Novo Nordisk), Denmark. This product was launched during 2000, when a worldwide strategic alliance was also announced. The agreement (effective January 2001) is an extension of an existing collaboration between the two companies.

Together, these two world leaders, DSM Nutritional Products, and Novozymes, bring quality, innovation and reliability into the area of feed enzymes. Novozymes will provide its know-how on research, product development and production, whilst DSM Nutritional Products brings its experience in application development, marketing and sales as well as its international presence in the feed industry. The alliance means leadership in the global enzyme market and a full complement of feed enzyme products. And of course, with the combination of superior nutritional and biochemical knowledge, this range has the best potential to expand in the future, bringing you new and fresh applications.

DSM Nutritional Products provides a full complement of enzyme products for both pig and poultry diets under the brand names RONOZYME® and ROXAZYME® . Please contact your local DSM representative for further information.

Enzymes are naturally occurring proteins that act as biological catalysts. The complex biochemical reactions that form the metabolism of living organisms are regulated by thousands of enzymes, each promoting a specific reaction that takes place countless times every day. In the mid-1980s, the addition of enzymes to animal feeds began in regions where the supply of highly digestible ingredients, such as maize (corn), was limited. The first products were too expensive to be used widely, but this has since changed. As a result of intensive research and development efforts, enzyme products are now commonly used in animal feeds. Feed enzymes increase the digestibility of nutrients, leading to improved animal nutrition, and thus can contribute to feeding an ever-growing human population. At the same time, they can play a role in minimizing the environmental impact of increased animal production.

The mode of action of enzymes can be described by the "lock and key" principle. Imagine a substrate(the molecule on which an enzyme acts) as a kind of lock, and an enzyme as the only key which will open it. Put the two together and a rapid reaction takes place which breaks apart the substrate into two or more smaller parts. The enzyme key is then removed intact to play its role in another reaction. Unfortunately, there is not always the right enzyme key for a particular substrate lock.

Cereals such as wheat, rye and barley, for example, contain long, complex carbohydrate molecules known as non-starch polysaccharides (NSPs), for which animals such as pigs and poultry do not produce the necessary digestive enzymes. The major NSPs in wheat are called arabinoxylans, and those in barley are beta-glucans. It is now well recognized that these components are anti-nutritional in behaviour. Not only do they increase the viscosity of digesta, which means that the animal’s own enzymes have a harder time locking onto nutrients and the absorption of these nutrients is reduced, but they also encapsulate nutrients, thus making them unavailable to the animal. The addition of NSP enzymes to animal diets allows the breakdown of these anti-nutritional factors and thus faster and more complete digestion of the feed, leading to improved nutritive value.

Feed enzymes are also able to upgrade sources of vegetable protein (such as soybeans, rapeseed, sunflower seed and legumes) in both pig and poultry diets.

The benefits of NSP enzymes include:

•  Reduction of feed costs by providing flexibility in feed formulation  
•  Improvement of feed efficiency in pigs and poultry  
•  Improvement of uniformity  
•  Reduction of sticky droppings (lower risk of dirty eggs, hock burns and breast blisters) and improvement of litter quality in poultry  
•  An increase in the dietary content of metabolizable energy

Apart from contributing to improving nutritive value, feed enzymes can also have a positive impact on the environment by allowing better use of natural resources and reducing pollution by nutrients.

In areas with intensive livestock production, the phosphorus output is often very high. This can lead to environmental problems such as eutrophication. This is the process by which a body of water becomes, either naturally or by pollution, rich in dissolved nutrients (such as phosphates), causing algae blooms and deficiencies in oxygen.

Most (50-80%) of the phosphorus contained in feedstuffs of plant origin exists as the storage form phytate, or phytic acid, and is indigestible for non-ruminant animals such as poultry and pigs. They cannot digest the phosphorus contained within these complex phytate structures, since they lack the enzyme to break down the phytate and free the phosphorus. The phytase enzyme is essential for the release of phytate-bound phosphorus. Therefore, sufficient phytase needs to be added to the feed.

Phytate also forms complexes with proteins, digestive enzymes and minerals, and as such is considered to be an anti-nutritional factor. Phytase frees the phosphorus contained in cereals and oilseeds, and by breaking down the phytate structure also achieves the release of other minerals such as calcium and magnesium, as well as proteins and amino acids, which have become bound to the phytate. Thus, by releasing bound phosphorus in feed ingredients of vegetable origin, phytase makes more phosphorus available for bone growth, and reduces the amount excreted into the environment. Use of the enzyme also has the added benefit of helping to conserve natural resources by eliminating the need to supplement feeds with sources of digestible inorganic phosphorus.

Our latest phytase product, RONOZYME® P, is of consistently high quality with exceptional flowability and processing stability, courtesy of the unique patented CT  (coated thermostable) granulate formulation. There are significant differences in stability through feed processing between the various granulate enzyme preparations available on the market. Our CT product forms have been designed specifically to protect the enzyme during hydrothermal feed processing, and subsequently degrade rapidly to release the enzyme in the digestive tract.

And of course all our enzyme products are available as liquids and free-flowing granulates to suit all feed production systems, allowing maximum flexibility.

The use of enzymes as feed additives is restricted in most countries by local regulatory authorities. Applications may therefore vary from country to country.