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Innovative family business steadily conquers the world
by Goo Media
The Schippers Group: animal welfare as a weapon Innovative family business steadily conquers the world
Constantly looking for new solutions for farming businesses, with a constant focus on animal welfare. It is a condensed version of what The Schippers Group in Hapert, Brabant, stands for. Driven by ‘Let’s beat AMR with HyCare’, the family-run business is steadily conquering the world with products and services that help farmers to farm better.
Anyone who regularly drives on the A67 Motorway near Hapert and passes the Kempisch Bedrijvenpark, can’t have failed to notice the 40,000-square-metre new head office of The Schippers Group being built. More than 850 tonnes of steel have been used in the complex, which comprises 400 workstations, a warehouse with fully automated order processing, a car park and a knowledge and information centre. The eye-catching building immediately makes it clear that The Schippers Group has serious ambitions for the future. It’s goal is to play an even bigger role on the national and international agricultural stage than it already does, with the ban on antibiotics in livestock farming as a major spearhead.
It took the company just 50 years to reach this point, from where it can co-direct the course for the further progress of intensive livestock farming. The story of The Schippers Group began back in 1966, when founder Martien Schippers – with roots on the farm – lost his job at the artificial insemination station in Hilvarenbeek. His boss came up with a solution: he had a cigar shop in Bladel and offere Martien Schippers to take over the business. Schippers seized the chance and became business owner, supported by and together with his soon-to-be wife.
As an enterprising and resourceful man in his twenties, he couldn’t have imagined then that this move would be the cornerstone for building a multinational company years later. The focus was initially on the tobacco products. He had his shop and, to increase sales, also took his wares outside the town to the many farms. He wasn’t the only one. Grocers and other traders often visited the local farmers because they couldn’t leave the premises unattended during the week. That only happened on Sundays to go to church. And on Sundays the shops were closed.
Sympathetic Martien Schippers was soon a welcome guest on the farms. This wasn’t merely because of his sympathetic way of doing business, but also because of his background and his knowledge of life in agriculture. As time went by, he started receiving other requests than just delivering cigars. It is how, without consciously making plans, he became the supplier of the first ear tags in the world when a cattle farmer told him he couldn’t tell his cows apart anymore after the expansion of his farm. Martien Schippers provided him with yellow plastic tags with a string and a number, so that he could earmark the animals. Today, The Schippers Group supplies 300 million ear tags every year to customers around the world.
His curiosity and genuine interest in farming life did the rest. Customers would ask him questions that he could sometimes answer, and other times not. And if he didn’t know the answer, he did research on the subject. Martien Schippers increasingly showed himself to be a visionary. He foresaw that more entrepreneurship would be expected from farmers in the future and responded by looking for new ways to introduce more efficiency into farming businesses. Around 1970, Martien and his
wife hired their first employee and, not long after, the company began offering its services in Belgium. MS Schippers moved to larger premises in Bladel in 1973.
Bleak MS Schippers continued to grow steadily. The couple’s three sons Harrie, Guus and Mark joined the company in the 1980s, each with their own district of customers. Business was running very smoothly until Martien, at the age of 50, started having serious problems with his health. The outlook was bleak and the company’s future, with ten people on the payroll at the time, was uncertain. But the brothers banded together and, as the successive generation, took over the reins.
Looking back, this development was of pivotal influence on the company’s further expansion. Martien Schippers fully recovered and, with his wife, decided to explore new opportunities at agricultural fairs: first domestically, then in neighbouring countries and the rest of Europe, and later around the globe. So it’s safe to say that the founder of MS Schippers single-handedly built an impressive network of agents and distributors and laid the foundation for the company’s international activities.
His efforts created enormous opportunities, which his sons have capitalized on in the past two decades. MS Schippers steadily grew into a leading supplier for the intensive stock-farming sector. Today, The Schippers Group has fourteen sales offices across Europe and operates worldwide with representative agents in seventy countries and a global staff of more than 350 people. Within the group, the MS Schippers label works as a total supplier for the livestock industry, offering farmers an extensive, but also deep and easy-to-order online product range. Next to it is the MS Gold brand, where experts develop new and
innovative products that lead to improved work conditions, time savings and better results. Perhaps the most important brand within The Schippers Group is HyCare, which specializes on improving hygiene in the farming industry through active coaching and support.
Antibiotics The Schippers Group has positioned itself, particularly in the past decade, as guardian of international intensive livestock farming. In that role, it has an equally outspoken and forward-thinking vision on current themes such as sustainability and responsible entrepreneurship. With let’s beat AMR with HyCare as its ‘battle cry’ and by employing the guiding principles of hygiene and good care of livestock in its market approach, the company consciously sets its apart, with the ultimate goal of a livestock farming industry without antibiotics.
The Schippers Group opts for a total approach that provides for continuous improvement. “In our vision, having an integrated approach to preventive animal health management contributes to (further) reducing antibiotic resistance and keeping zoonoses under control. This forms the basis of a healthy animal production chain and isn’t just vital for the health of our animals, but also for public health”, says The Schippers Group. There has never been a greater social relevance than at the current moment. The majority of experts around the world believe that COVID-19 is of animal origin (albeit not from intensive livestock farming). Furthermore, the European stock-farming sector is already struggling with advancing diseases, such as African swine fever.
Pioneer By bringing in more (high-quality) knowledge over the course of the years, by seeking collaborations with leading (inter)national knowledge institutes and by entering into strategic partnerships, The Schippers Group has steadily developed into a pioneer of sorts,playing a major role in turning the dials towards further improving the circumstances and conditions in livestock farming, with a constant focus on animal welfare. Both the demand and the necessity for preventive animal health management are growing on a global scale. In addition to these needs, closed-loop agriculture and sustainable farming are becoming more prominent. And although the fight against the use of antibiotics is still encountering quite some resistance, particularly due to existing patterns and methods, The Schippers Group is steadily continuing to grow.
This growth resulted in the company deciding in 2016 to establish a new head office, where the innovation and knowledge centre for livestock farming is destined to play a key role. The Schippers Group also wants to offer accommodation to start-ups in order to further accelerate innovations. It fits seamlessly into the evolution over the past decades and the company’s evolution towards being the knowledge-intensive company it is today. The company itself says: “We are more ambitious than ever. The growth in recent years has made us realize that the possibilities are unprecedented.”
RENCO, Ag World Int’l and the Cluver family would like to take this opportunity to recognize MS Schippers for 50 years as a family business. As a family business ourselves we recognize the hard work and commitment this takes and we commend you for this achievement.
RENCO, founded in 1961, has been sold by MS Schippers for many years. RENCO is a leading manufacturer of veterinary ultrasonic instruments that fi ll many needs in the livestock industry.
Ag World Int’l purchased RENCO from the Gainsley family in 2019 to continue its tradition of high-quality durable products at reasonable prices. Over the years RENCO has broadened their product line to include early pregnancy detection in swine, measurement of backfat and loin thickness.
RENCO offers instruments that are effective for use in cattle, sheep, goats, and alpacas. RENCO instruments have also been used by researchers to measure blubber in seals, pregnancy testing in porpoises, and breast measurement in poultry. All these devices help the end user maximize time, resources, and profi ts.
Today RENCO products are in use in over 120 countries and have become the industry standard. They are designed for farm use and are simple enough for anyone to operate.
Ag World Int’l was organized in 1977 with the mission to provide the highest quality livestock at the most competitive prices to the global agriculture community. Following through on their commitment, Ag World has worked to improve the volume and quality of agricultural products in 107 countries.
An integral part of striving for high quality genetics is providing the ability to quantify the product. To that end Ag World has been the international distributor of RENCO for more than 35 year.
Ag World also maintains the Bio-Genics brand in the USA as a producer of Goat Semen and AI equipment for goats. Ag World is expanding opportunities for international customers interested in the goat market to source superior quality goat genetics from the USA.
