Culture, commitment to quality drive BioZyme Stockyard plant to excellence
BioZyme’s Stockyard plant has been named recipient of the AFIA/Feedstuffs 2024 Feed Facility of the Year award
By SARAH MUIRHEAD
BioZyme Inc.’s Stockyard plant in St. Joseph, MO, has been chosen as the winner of the 2024 Feed Facility of the Year award. The Feed Facility of the Year award is presented annually by the American Feed Industry Association and Feedstuffs to a feed facility exhibiting an exemplary commitment to quality, safety, productivity, regulatory compliance, employee development and customer relations. “We were extremely impressed with the BioZyme Stockyards facility. It is very evident that they exemplify the core values of the Feed Facility of the Year program. The plant is a shining example of manufacturing excellence in the animal food industry,” said Gary Huddleston, AFIA Director, Feed Manufacturing & Regulatory Affairs.
A long-time innovator in the fields of animal nutrition and microbiology, BioZyme offers a complete line of high-quality vitamin, mineral, and protein supplements with the Amaferm advantage. Amaferm is a natural prebiotic that increases digestion and increases energy, milk and gain; thereby providing a solution and the support needed to economically benefit production agriculture. The Stockyard plant is managed by Cody Jensen and produces 31,000 tons annually. BioZyme was started by a former Cargill salesperson, Larry Ehlert, in 1951 when he started his own brand, Ehlert’s Guaranteed Feeds, by borrowing $2,500 and buying a fledging feed store on Packers Ave., across from the then booming St Joseph, Mo., Stockyards. In 1962, Ehlert purchased the patent and marketing rights to an unheard of direct-fed microbial, Amaferm, through the acquisition of BioZyme Enterprises Inc.
With a continued commitment to research, BioZyme now offers products for a variety of animals, including cattle, pigs, poultry, sheep, goats, horses and dogs. BioZyme brands include VitaFerm®, Gain Smart®, DuraFerm®, Sure Champ®, Vitalize®, Backyard Boost®, and AO-Biotics®.
Commitment to quality
As an organization, BioZyme is committed to five goals – sales growth, sales diversification, profitability, inspired accountability and safe, accurate product. The production of quality products is fundamental to the company’s values and is something that guides the BioZyme team long-term and in everyday decision-making.
“Our mission is that at our facilities, quality assurance is a way of doing business every day. We truly strive to live and breathe quality, rather than just achieving a certification or passing an audit or inspection. We believe that each company employee is responsible for the production of safe, accurate product and animal food safety,” said Lisa Norton, president and CEO of BioZyme.
During the initial stages of its quality philosophy development BioZyme surveyed its dealers and customers in order to gain an understanding of what safe and accurate product meant to them. That feedback was then woven into the company’s definition of SAFE, ACCURATE product.
“We are intentional about producing SAFE products that are free of both high-risk ingredients and any foreign material. We mitigate these risks through the implementation of a test and hold program, sequencing and flushing, dedicated equipment and process flows for species-specific products, as well as installation of receiving screens, magnets and a feed cleaner and magnet drawer that serves as the final pass prior to bagging,” said Jill Vanover, Vice President of Quality & Regulatory for the company.
Based on customer feedback, BioZyme defines ACCURATE product to mean that the product looks the same, smells/feeds the same (correlated with palatability) and reliably matches the guaranteed analysis based on its key selling points. “To ensure that our products look the same, we assess physical characteristics by quantitatively assessing particle size, bulk density, and color. To ensure that our products smell the same, we are finalizing the launch of custom flavors that will help customers identify BioZyme products unmistakably. And, to ensure our products meet the guaranteed analysis and those crucial ingredients called out in the key selling points for each product, we are quantifying those values through routine analysis based on statistics for confidence in our products and their nutrient values,” said Vanover.
Capital investments
In 2023, the company accomplished the full automation of its pellet line at its Stockyards plant.
The investment in the pelleting line has been tremendously beneficial to production and allows for products to now have their own distinct run settings. As a result, the company can pivot and swiftly adapt to product changeovers and any schedule changes without additional manual input. The improvement also includes an in-line checkweigher for weight verification of each bag without further operator effort, according to Robert Cortez, Director or Quality.Consequent to this automation, the new system has increased throughput without sacrificing consistency. Product output has increased significantly run-to-run as well.“Bringing this capital investment online improves our flexibility and scope on the ability to bag different pelleted products and, in turn, allows us to control batch size more efficiently for floor stock,” Cortez said.
Lisa Norton, President and CEO of BioZyme
“Our efforts in quality at BioZyme ultimately go back to our why --- we are always striving to be WOWing. We go above and beyond at BioZyme – so it makes sense that we seek to approach safe and accurate product in an innovative way and commit to the related quality endeavor both operationally and financially,” said Norton.
“We believe that being WOWing, when it comes to quality, is what it takes to exhibit care that comes full circle. Care that comes full circle is the continuous improvement effort BioZyme deeply believes in,” Norton said.
In addition to quality and accuracy, Norton, who has served in her leadership capacity since 2018, is passionate about the company, its staff, its products, its customers and its responsibility to each as well as to the community. It is that passion that has created a positive culture at BioZyme that is centered around caring. As she explains it, caring is like a boomerang. If you toss it out, it will come back to you. Caring is full circle and heart-centered.
