Innovation

Westbury Mill

In April 2019 Ridley opened a new state-of-the art extrusion facility in Westbury, Tasmania, to better service the Salmonid industry based in this state. This plant was built with the support of $2 million in grant funding from the Tasmanian Government in recognition of the contribution it will make to this important industry and the local economy.

The plant has been engineered to enable Ridley to develop and provide the Salmonid industry in Australia and New Zealand with highly functional feeds to maximise fish growth and health, and to manage the challenges that come from intensive farming and warming sea waters.  The Westbury mill will also provide high quality performance feeds to other aquaculture and extruded feed users on the Australian mainland.

Lara Feed Mill

In February 2017, Ridley opened its newest feed mill, located at Lara on the north eastern outskirts of Geelong. Incorporating environmentally friendly and highly efficient global best practice, the mill has been designed to deliver the highest quality feed.

The mill is strategically located near the key growth areas for poultry and pig production, and is also in close proximity to raw material grain supply and logistics. The mill will manufacture animal stockfeed, which supports poultry, pig and other animal industries in Western Victoria.

To celebrate the success of this mill, we have produced a seven minute video to record the achievement of our Lara Feed mill project with contributions from the Ridley CEO and Turi Foods.

Novacq™

Novacq™ is a groundbreaking novel prawn feed ingredient that is derived from a marine microbial process which involved over 10 years of research and development by the CSIRO.

Novacq™ acts as a metabolic stimulant when included in prawn feed diets. It increases the prawn’s food intake and permits the animal to utilise the feed more efficiently. Because of this, the prawn will grow faster (gain more weight and/or provide shorter harvest cycle times) and use less feed (improve feed conversion).

Novacq™ can also be used to help replace scarce fishery resources such as fish meal in prawn diets, which is important for consumers, retailers and overall industry sustainability.

A number of lab-based trials over the past 4 years in both Australia and Thailand have been conducted, consistently demonstrating growth rate improvements in the vicinity of 40% or more. In addition to the improvement in feed conversion rates of 20-30% from and accelerated growth, the trials are exhibiting improvements in animal well-being via enhanced resistance to the challenge of viral/bacterial attacks and thereby increasing survival rates.

First commercial production commenced in Australia in 2018 with the goal of providing customers with NOVACQ^TM fortified feeds to trial, and to improve yields when operating at a larger scale. In parallel, additional production ponds have been secured in Thailand in which to grow the microbe from which NOVACQ^TM is extracted.

Sow Block

The enriched sow block was developed to address the emerging trend in international markets seeking to advance the welfare of commercially farmed animals through environmental enrichment.

The taste and texture of the molasses based Sow Enrichment Block is designed to attract sows and provide an outlet to express their natural desire to forage, reducing the incidence of aggressive behaviours which harm sows and productivity.