Other grains, some vegetables, oilseeds, sunflowers, sugar beet and molasses are also important feed ingredients. The market is supplied by the farming industry, which is also its major customer. Consequently, recent problems within the farming industry have had a negative impact on many feed suppliers. A key factor for animal feed suppliers is livestock numbers. Consequently, volume feed sales for cattle fell from 4.7 million tonnes in 1996 to 3.9 million in 1998.
Compounds are sophisticated products, their protein and vitamin content being closely monitored.
They are growing in popularity as farmers increasingly strive to maintain tighter controls on the diets and health of their livestock. Increased sales of compounds, which are usually more expensive than other feeds, have given market value a slight boost. However, feed sales generally have shown little value growth, because of the low price of many raw materials and depressed demand from the farming sector. As a result of low prices and weak demand, industry margins are relatively low. Many of the larger companies have developed new, more sophisticated products to try to stimulate sales.