Facts that Figure

SUMMARY Table of contents

Report VIV Asia in Bangkok, 8th-10th March 2023

Sawadi-Ka! Welcome again

It seemed every visitor and exhibitor had been yearning to be back under the roofs of VIV Asia after four years of enforced absence!

Cage Free Academy

March 2023

23 high-level specialists from South and North America and Europe attended H&N Cage-Free Academy in Cuxhaven 27th to 31st March 2023.

Boost your sales!

Why H&Ns Marketing Value Portal is the first of a kind in the entire poultry industry

It’s a frequent problem: production is crucial, so everything is dedicated to it. Marketing and sales only gets considered if there is any time left.

Nicaraguan power player in pigs, and now poultry

H&N International welcomes VELACSA AVICOLA as a new distributor of H&N Day-old-Layers (DOL)

Their powerful profit model took off with pigs, now VELACSA offers even more protein value creation as they received H&N birds of the Super Nick breed for the first time in May 2023.

Mafalda Lopes

H&N International welcomes our new Director of Planning & Logistics

Mafalda Lopes has been appointed as H&N Internationals new director of planning and logistics leading our logistics team.

H&N International welcomes specialist for Technical Services Latin America Dr. Juliana Armijo de Souza 22

Brazilian born Dr. Juliana Armijo de Souza joined our team in January 2024, taking on the responsibility of delivery Technical Services in Latin America.

SUMMARY

When science took over

the hen house original footage with Arthur Heisdorf!

Luckily, Art and Mary Heisdorf left more than one original source besides their big brown personal scrapbook with newspaper clippings, original letters, and early marketing materials.

Our Crown of Brown

the best in town

Our brown layer H&N Brown Nick produces eggs of “spectacular” color – a rich warm brown, almost like milk chocolate!

Dr. Rocco Emilio Scappaticcio

H&N International welcomes new nutritionist for the Americas and Europe

Nutrition is one of the key levers to drive layers and egg targets towards the individual desired outcome and local market demand.

New Geneticist joins H&N International Headquarter

Continuously rising global market demands for the most adaptable, reliable and most efficient layer birds keep propelling H&N Internationals growth...

Dr. vet. Roberto Espinola The Mary C. Heisdorf Scholarship

Or “the inner circle of people really interested in poultry”

The Mary C. Heisdorf scholarship was founded 1st June 1989. The founder was her husband Arthur J. Heisdorf, widower after Mary had passed away in 1988.

History of data storage

From punched cards to cloud

Paper discs, magnetic discs, layers of silicon: the history of data carriers is checkered. But one theme is constant across all storage media.

SUMMARY

Updates release with more functions and even greater user friendliness

H&N Internationals invention KAI is unparalleled in the world’s egg producing industry! There are a couple of Apps around for stand-alone tasks and with more or less support, but none of them comes close to what KAI offers. Sounds like steaming hot self-adulation?

50

Heisdorfs History

Despite the beginnings of H&N International in North America in 1945 and the triumphal procession of Nick Chick and the following H&N breeds to global markets, many USfarmers are not aware that, in fact, they breed with the iconic layer hen.

4th H&N Distributor Conference, Istanbul 2023

Have you ever boarded a time machine to look at your own potential future? We did at the 4th Distributor Conference. 85 participants in total made this one a truly special event!

48 52

Flex your muscles, book your personal trainer!

KAI is the industries‘ cutting edge farming app – and it even comes with your own trainer!

Evgeny Kravchenko

H&N International welcomes Key Account Manager Russia and CIS countries

Party with Arty

Best Flocks awarded at H&N Distributor Conference 2023, Istanbul

Outstanding work deserves outstanding acknowledgement! The highlight and culminating moment of each Distributor Conference is the AwardCeremony to recognize the best flocks. There are all sorts of reasons to not change to yet another App. You already have so many. You feel tied to one particular or obliged to use this one and no other or you are simply used to the one you had so far.

Understanding the way things work, and being able to convey product benefits and value proposition to customers is a leading theme in Evgeny Kravchenko's’ career, which started some ten years ago in the food packaging industry.

SUMMARY

H&N Academy 2023 – „one of the most interactive meetings I’ve ever seen!”

Cuxhaven, 13th to 17th November 2023

– Dynamic Learning became one of our favorite ways long before to share knowledge and acquire more of it!

Dr. Amel Rabia … and aaaction!!! 64

Veterinarian Junior at H&N International

We welcome Dr. Amel Rabia as our accomplished and dedicated veterinarian junior at H&N International. Amel brings a wealth of experience in the poultry field, having served as the responsible party for a poultry complex in Algeria.

Yes, they are beautiful to look at! They are probably not just a girl’s best friend! But what’s that thing we have going on with that diamond symbol?

More than the sum of its parts Click a Chick Contest

Looking at the symbolism and system behind the diamond and Winning Images and Winning Images

Editorial

WELCOME TO THE FOURTH EDITION OF OUR COMPANY MAGAZINE “FACTS THAT FIGURE”!

XABIER ARBE Managing Director H&N International

You know me; I don ’t like to use too many words. We all want to get straight to where the profit is! No wasting time and energy!

But here’s the thing:

Communication doesn’t just convey content. It also defines, paves and strengthens ways while transferring information between sender and recipient! The way we deal with others shows who we are ourselves.

The way we talk—or don’t talk—reveals a lot about how we see the world. The tone of voice as much as facial and body language are powerful non-verbal nuances in verbal messages.

Hence, communication may sometimes feel strenuous when information is bounced back and forth. Yet in doing so, and doing it well, connections get made, and mutual trust is built. And mutual trust is the foundation for sustainable business!

Our cover illustration

Neither eggs nor hens are on the cover this time. Poultry is not just about protein production—ours is a people’s business!

So, instead of focusing solely on production, this time we have chosen a potent symbol for targeted sales. Because you also want to sell well to rake in the profit that you and your birds have been creating over weeks of hard labor! Now you want to get your product value message across to your local customers! You absolutely want to make sure it gets across and reaches them so they consider your brand and your supply to be the ones they trust and buy. Our new Market Value Proposition (MVP) Portal is unique in the industry, because it helps you sell the birds better! And tell the sales story better!

A story untold is a story unheard. The same goes for product stories and unique selling propositions (USPs). A good product message around that unique selling proposition is so important that it mustn’t be thrown at the markets at random, hoping it gets picked up and sticks. Let’s get it across together and for sure!

Xabier Arbe, Managing Director H&N International

The

REPORT VIV ASIA IN BANGKOK,

8TH–10TH MARCH 2023

SAWADI-KA! WELCOME AGAIN

It seemed every visitor and exhibitor had been yearning to be back under the roof of VIV Asia after four years of enforced absence! Our booth 2510 in Hall 2 was very much visited on all three days of the trade fair, with prospects and long-term customers touching base with us from all over Asia. We wanted to make the most of it, so we offered our customers dinner on the rooftops of Bangkok on two evenings to continue to have quality time together.

Outstanding in the industry

Our farming assistance app KAI was one of the big topics—KAI contains all the knowledge needed to manage pullet rearing or the production of hatchery or table eggs. And to manage the staff, too! The task manager and reminder functions KAI offers are currently unique in the industry; no other app comes closer to a real expert to oversee all the steps and procedures, monitoring and evaluating the results.

Many visitors took the chance to download the app right away when they heard about its features. It takes just a few easy steps: download the app from Google Play or App Store at www.hn-int.com/KAI, find your country to create your country code, and you can start personalizing KAI with your user profile, create your farm with houses and flocks—even if you don’t work with H&N breeds, you can monitor your birds with KAI.

Arrival at the “Holodeck”

Our mission is still to be the most customer-centered company. Following our brand affirmation.

Genetics and more”

we also featured a new holographic experience for mobile devices. The hologram is yet more proof that we live in two worlds, the analogue and the digital, being versatile and adaptable just like our birds. The hologram shows how we

work by putting everything about our customers’ egg targets at the center.

That’s what drives us: our customers are simply the core of our universe”, says Xabier Arbe, Managing Director of H&N International.

– and we hope to see you all soon again!

NICARAGUAN POWER PLAYER IN PIGS, AND NOW POULTRY

H&N

INTERNATIONAL WELCOMES

VELACSA

AVICOLA

AS A NEW DISTRIBUTOR OF H&N DAY-OLD LAYERS (DOL)

Their powerful profit model took off with pigs, and now VELACSA is offering even more protein value creation since they received H&N birds from the Super Nick breed for the first time in May 2023. VELACSA will be selling H&N Super Nick day-old layers (DOL) to layer farmers in Nicaragua.

Located in Abangasca Sur, north of León, VELACSA manages two growth areas. The company works to provide comprehensive solutions for all branches of the local agribusiness in Nicaragua. Their logos on their own Facebook channel show a sunny farm complete with a feed container and pigs, dwarfed by a huge, imposing wild boar in dark colors: “First we raised pigs,” says President Juan Pablo Velázquez, "but we never limited ourselves"

From the beginning, we investigated more ways to diversify our portfolio, and to establish ourselves as a modern, multi-level company that provides more than animals, but complete solutions for our customer base!

H&N Super Nick was chosen because VELACSA was looking for a premium breed to work as a mass white egg layer providing the highest egg mass. We are very happy to partner with VELACSA and further support the company’s strong position in the market!”

said veterinarian Dr. Ronald Trenchi, technical specialist at H&N International and key account manager for Latin America.

H&N International welcomes VELACSA AVICOLA as a distributor: Juxleonard Enrique Bolaños, Carlos Alfonso Velazquez, Dr. Ronald Trenchi from H&N, Juan Pablo Velazquez and Carlos Velazquez. Read more in our press room.

CAGE FREE ACADEMY

March 2023

Can Lucky Freed Chicken…be Cash Cows?

23

high-level specialists from South and North America

and Europe attended the H&N Cage-Free Academy in Cuxhaven from 27 th to 31 st March 2023.

Having so much knowhow in one spot made this academy a very rich, pleasant experience.

Hitting the Freeway— success is a way

Cage-free is not so much a question of in or out; it’s a process involving multiple stakeholders on all levels from farm to federal!

Some countries are entirely cage-free today like Switzerland; others pursue a two-pronged or multi-pronged strategy to reach it, while others are starting to consider it.

Cage-free means a big change in production management and nutrition. However, the main change is in the company’s culture.

Cage-free farmers can’t apply the same mentality as in cage production, so there must be a core change in the farm’s organization when cage-free egg production is supposed to happen.

The big “change” is really many changes Trying out new roles and responsibilities

Little details become more important and the coordination of the different people in egg production becomes the key to success.

Rearing is yet more crucial: body weight, feed intake development, feeding patterns… all such parameters will the determine success or failure.

The farmer’s job also changes: this new form of production requires more time spent with the birds, which will show new kinds of behavior. The farmers need to be there to see these, understand them and change whatever is needed so the birds can show their full genetic potential. New ways of production require changes and a period of adaptation.

Many topics were discussed affecting the changes needed to get successful cage-free production. All the mornings were packed with reviewing topics related to genetic selection, management, health and nutrition, and the changes that producers need to make compared to in-cage production.

In the afternoons, the participants went on Dynamic Learning Workshops to exchange and boost knowhow and local experience among experts from various corners of the world. Troubleshooting exercises for management followed. Then the participants took on the role of detective nutritionists, solving performance issues related to cage-free nutrition.

For free time, our “obligatory” bowling session on Tuesday and a karaoke night on Wednesday spiced up the event with leisure and fun, before we wrapped it up with the certificate ceremony.

By the way:

The new H&N Cage-Free Management Guides have all the information about cage-free for each H&N breed. Check them out here: www.hn-int.com/downloads

Mafalda Lopes has been appointed as H&N Internationals new director of planning and logistics leading our logistics team. Mafalda will be overseeing all tasks related to planning shipments, forecasting and surveillance of deliveries and shipments to our worldwide customer base.

Mafalda not only brings numerous years of experience to the team. In previous roles and responsibilities, she also acquired in-depth knowledge of every single step in projects throughout the entire value creation process!

With a background in veterinary medicine and poultry farming, in October 2014 Mafalda became the Quality Manager for the commercial distributor H&N Peninsular in Portugal. In this position, she oversaw the hatchery process and management of Day-Old Layers (DOL). In 2016, she introduced a Quality Management System based on ISO 9001:2008 into the hatchery and managed the entire certification procedure across each operational task and activity.

Excellence of execution in any process and quality are not just nice words. Behind quality there is a precisely organized, well-orchestrated business purpose that becomes provable customer value”, she says.

And “well-defined processes, a structured mutual exchange of information and an ongoing constructive dialogue” are what she sees as core ingredients of her recipe for success to set up world-class logistics operations and bring people and poultry together.

And her way works: In April 2017 she was appointed Veterinarian Support and Production Manager for a Grand Parent Stock (GP) farm in Portugal. Here again, she was responsible for quality control for the Parent Stock’s hatching and logistics operations. And soon her scope of work grew larger across more countries like Germany, Denmark, the UK—and then also beyond the borders of Europe.

Global planning and logistics require a lot of experience in terms of regulations, routes and best-practices as well as the ability to deal wisely and efficiently with game changers,

force majeure that can occur in any logistics at any time and across many miles and numerous borders—no easy task! Mafalda follows Silvia Mourino, who accepted a new position within the EW-group.

Beyond her vast experience in logistics, Mafalda also brings her insights as a veterinarian and production manager for a GPS farm to the job, together with her skills in quality management and quality control acquired during her hatchery work. With such a broad gamut, Mafalda is an expert in understanding and managing the “big picture” of how chicks arrive best at our customers’ farms and how value travels and grows along the paths connecting layer businesses.

BOOST YOUR SALES!

Why H&N’s Marketing Value Portal is the first of its kind in the entire poultry industry

It’s a common problem: production is crucial, so everything gets dedicated to it. Marketing and sales are only considered if there is any time left over. And if there isn’t…then what?

Going

hand-in-hand

– production and sales

Sales is equally important as production. But too often it ranks last. Even the bestproduced flock will turn out a failure without generating turnover—that is, getting sold at a good price. You must sell well what you do well! You need to position your birds second to none in each of your local markets. Make your customers know—and demand—the value of your birds.

That is what H&N’s new portal is: a unique first-of-a-kind, bestof-breed sales tool providing you with tangible detailed propositions for the sellable market value of our hens. How great they are and why. The new portal is where you get your sales gear to arm your sales force with content, material, and self-esteem to proudly sell an industry-leading, highperforming brand. Your brand!

Please take it personal—personalize your hen and tailor your marketing & sales

H&N birds’ genetics make them the most adaptable in the industry. That means they will be what you need: mass producers of early eggs or suppliers of jumbo sizes. They can give you the very egg targets your markets demand. And they will do so in any housing, any climate and with any feed!

It’s you who “drives” them by way of correct layer feed management, correct light programs, and due diligence in timed procedures.

All that is far easier than you may think, because you can even do so remotely with KAI Farming Assistance! KAI tells you precisely and in easy words each and every step, keeping track of all tasks and sending reminders or alerts if any indicator begins to go off track.

KAI creates the reports you need and gives you realtime support any time you need it! So, production can run like charm towards your personal goals.

Make your sales strategic!

Sales, too, will adapt to your individual market’s demand. Your staff members assigned to sales and marketing—or yourself if you personally handle sales—get everything you need to position and describe H&N Birds correctly in each local market. You can find product messaging for each H&N breed with corresponding materials such as posters, flyers, brochures and even videos.

Adapting any material to your language or even creating new material for yourselves? No problem at all; let’s look into all the options.

Material translation, for example, is very easy—you only need to pick your material; just give us your translation, and we’ll do all the rest to edit and lay out your personalized material, add your logo and any other amendments.

The key to your profit

Are you losing money? Check on your marketing cash rebate

Remember that there is money set aside for you! Each customer model—PRO, PREMIUM and ELITE—is eligible for a percentage of cash rebate for your own marketing purposes!

This is a direct investment from H&N International into your local sales success—so claim your money and use it to your own benefit!

Here is how:

The MVP Portal

MVP stands for Marketing Value Proposition—the value your H&N product brings to your local market. The MVP is structured like a portal, with more contents constantly coming in.

The MVP Portal currently covers our four main breeds: Brown Nick, Nick Chick, Crystal Nick and Super Nick, with the largest global presence. So you have a special market and are interested in Coral? No problem, talk to us! The MVP portal is divided into five main categories with subcategories that hold product messages and associated marketing materials to convey them. These categories are:

Bird: Qualities and Characteristics

Definition and Character

Special Strength and Advantages

Market Footprint

Egg Quality

Number

Size and Weight

Shell Strength (Salability in terms of Transportability)

Shell Color (Salability in terms of Uniformity)

Feed

Feed Intake and Adaptability

Feed Efficiency

NutriCubes (correct layer-targeted feed management for short— for Vets and Farm Staff)

Bird: Production and Management

Housing and Adaptability

Laying

Economic Value

Support Services

Technical Services and Support

Marketing Materials and Support

Software

Training

How to use the MVP to your benefit—the process

At one of your next meetings, your Key Account Manager (KAM) will ask for some extra time to sit down with you and show you around the new portal. It basically works like an a-la-carte restaurant with a lot of choice.

1

2

You can choose what bird features are most important in your local market. You can choose up to 3 product values for each breed you have, which matter most to your customers.

3

Next, choose:

3a.) the channel(s) – a channel is anything that puts messaged material through to your customers! So, a channel could be your website, LinkedIn or other social media or mass media channels you use. A channel can also be a personal agent or a staff member assigned to marketing. A channel can be your trucks driving around with H&N motifs printed on them. It may be posters, brochures or other print material that you bring to your customers. A channel can be an e-mail, mass mailings or how callers are greeted by your answering machine or central switch board.

And then:

3b) choose your timeline, mark the frequency and duration with which you will be using the materials. Mark your calendar: when and how often will customers get targeted with your material? Hold the marketing representative (your staff or yourself) accountable with regular actions! Because regular activity is mandatory to create the “buzz”: ongoing impressions in your customers’ brains that make them consider your brand!

4

The key to your profit

4. Now, budget the material, make an estimate of what costs will occur, and how much of these can be covered by using your marketing cash rebate. All H&N customers are eligible for their individual marketing cash rebate depending on the business model of your choice! This way, we directly re-invest in your local brand presence and support your sales! The cash rebate can be used to produce and print material locally, for example, or to book media space in local trade or public media, to place advertisements.

5

Finally, also get your sales team trained—our KAM have more to offer, they can show your team how to answer and handle any kind of factual or critical questions from your customers; and we offer ready-to-use PowerPoint presentations for each bird. All to tell the story well—and to sell well!

Ask your Key Account Manager (KAM) to show you the Market Value Proposition (MVP) and spend your cash rebate to create more buzz! You are great and you deserve the world—and primarily your markets—to know more about you!

Customers meeting with KAM

Pick 3 key values/USPs to promote locally.

Getting customized calendar from H&N

Include the 3 values and develop new material if needed.

Customers are ready to post from their own calendar with their own texts.

Interlinking with the global brand communication where desired — and pushing own local USPs as needed

The

Dr. Juliana Armijo de Souza

H&N International welcomes the specialist for

Technical

Services Latin America

Brazilian-born Dr. Juliana Armijo de Souza joined our team in January 2024, taking on the responsibility of delivering Technical Services in Latin America. She recalls:

When H&N International offered me this great new opportunity, I didn't have to think it over for long, even though I had a couple of other job offers lined up as well!”

says Dr. Juliana Armijo de Souza.

Before joining H&N International, she was based in Chile, where she worked as Key Account Manager (KAM) for Ceva Salud Animal, an international laboratory dedicated to manufacturing poultry vaccines.

As a veterinarian, Juliana has always had strong roots in the poultry industry, including technical services and sales consultancy activities.

But the excitement and challenge of exploring a different, new and wider area than the one she had been working in so far made her want to know more about the poultry industry in other Latin American countries, and to learn new things in parent stock and layer management beyond vaccines.

In her university studies, pet medicine alone felt too small a subject to satisfy her thirst for knowledge and interesting career opportunities, and she soon decided to specialize in poultry production for a bigger picture.

Poultry is a people’s business, with the total brand experience including all of our stakeholders, our distributors and customers, our colleagues—and new colleagues becoming part of this team!

H&N International impressed me from the start, from the way the colleagues collaborate in this world-spanning team, how positively and people-oriented they are and how innovative and creative the H&N brand comes along! I felt inspired by the camaraderie and dedication; that was enough to know this would be a great place for me to work!”. enthuses Juliana.

She likes to be surrounded by animals in her spare time, too, which she enjoys spending with her little son and husband— with three dogs and five cats.

We are very happy to count on Juliana and wish her a great start with H&N International!

WHEN SCIENCE TOOK OVER

THE HEN HOUSE ORIGINAL FOOTAGE WITH ARTHUR HEISDORF!

Old movie from 1960s shows H&N International’s revolutionary breeding method

Luckily, Art and Mary Heisdorf left more than one original source besides their big brown personal scrapbook with newspaper clippings, original letters and early marketing materials.

And another such treasure was found in our archive in 2022, sitting in an old, rust-encrusted round film container! It had been out of plain sight, buried under a heavy pile of boxes with other outdated materials, and had rested there undiscovered and forgotten.

For how many years we didn’t know when we found it there. And likewise, it was at first unclear what this round, rusty old can contained, if it contained anything at all.

It’s truly a treasure on film!

“Yuck! It’s probably some old worthless junk. Throw it away, it’s just taking up the much-needed space for our new stuff!” said one of us when looking at the rusty container with a mixture of doubt and repulsion.

“No! Stop! Give me that! Maybe there’s a film inside! Maybe it’s unique! Maybe even priceless!” said another, and wouldn’t let go of the ominous container.

Opening the treasure box

Indeed, inside there was a film reel. A film of what was apparently celluloid, coiled up on a film spool, some 20 centimeters in diameter! This was oooooold stuff! And not just a short movie, but a longer one, at least 20 minutes we guesstimated with growing excitement.

We didn’t know at that time if it had anything to do with H&N International at all.

A look at the label on top of the container didn’t give any clues to the movie’s secrets or the year it was shot, either. Carefully looking at the first frames, we had to know more. We wanted to see the entire movie. The decision was made to digitize it. But that was easier said than done, because old movies need old projection equipment to be shown, and few specialized companies still have such working equipment. Mostly archives and museums have it, but they also draw in boatloads of their own material and often lack the resources, staff, time and budget to help with external requests.

Thanks to our video expert agency La Marmota Insomne, the movie was not only digitized but also subtitled in English. And when they called us up, they enthused: “It’s truly a treasure on film!”

Starring Nick Chick, Art Heisdorf and many more

We still could not determine the year it was made, since it isn’t stated anywhere. Judging from the contents and the people portrayed, the film was probably made around 1960, maybe even before.

It tells the story of how Art Heisdorf introduced the first iconic breed, the Nick Chick, to the German and European Markets.

N International had been looking for licensees overseas and contracted Lohmann in 1959 as the first distributor. Soon, Nick Chick found further customers. Post-war German and European markets readily embraced the new breeding methods and computerbased modern scientific selection coming from the US, and so H&N’s Nick Chick helped many companies grow bigger and bigger, ultimately to world leadership.

Early computing with IBM

The movie also shows former Chief Geneticist Max von Krosigk sitting with H&N founder Art Heisdorf. In the next shot, the computing part of layer breeding is portrayed: Art Heisdorf had used IBM computers for his big data selection already in the US as early as 1951 or 1952. And he brought IBM’s technology to Cuxhaven, too, as early as the 1960s.

An article published in the iconic Businessweek (today called Bloomberg Businessweek), the issue of 16th March, 1963, is called “Science takes over the hen house”. It’s about Art and Mary Heisdorf’s revolutionary breeding approach and the deployment of computing technology to process all the data the couple collected meticulously. “Science takes over the hen house” would also be a great title for the old movie.

Cover of Business Week, March 16, 1963

On the cover: Jules C. Stein physician, businessman and founder of MCA (Music Corporation America) Inc., originally an artist’s agency, Lew Wassermann, businessman, talent agent and “legendary movie mogul" and Milton Rackmil, ViceCharman of MCA Inc.

At that time, a computer would occupy an entire room and specialized staff would operate computers with paper punch cards. Each chick got its own punch card shortly after hatching.

It was around the same time that Americans deployed IBM computers in their space program, calculating flight path angles and supplies to finally send a team to the moon in 1969—the Hollywood Movie Hidden Figures tells the story of early IBM computing and the specialists operating them.

The creative driving force behind using computing technology in breeding to process huge amounts of data persists today, just way smaller and faster. Not just one technical quantum leap but many since have put far more data and functionality into our hands in much smaller, better and faster computer devices.

Art and Mary Heisdorf surely would have loved KAI, H&N’s farming assistant powered by artificial intelligence, because KAI is the logical follow-up to the early IBM computing giants.

Art and Mary Heisdorf surely would have loved KAI, H&N’s farming assistant powered by artificial intelligence, because KAI is the logical follow-up to the early IBM computing giants

Back to the roots—H&N International’s beginnings

It’s a fun fact to know that today a Microsoft office building stands on a former Heisdorf Hatchery in Redmond, Seattle (WA). You could almost say it “hatched” there in 1979, two decades after Art and Mary Heisdorf had already been using modern computing power, albeit from IBM, in their genetic work.

Three historic societies in the US foster the heritage and memory of Art and Mary Heisdorf: The Redmond Historical Society, Kirkland Heritage and Woodinville Heritage, all located close to Seattle, Washington.

It’s very interesting to see the influence of chicken breeding on the American agricultural sector, the changes in nationwide nutrition, and the modernization and export of breeding success to the entire world.

And still today, H&N International continues to be a leading brand in farming software, too: H&N’s digital farming assistant KAI is currently unparalleled by any other in terms of scope, functions, flawless scalability and overall userfriendliness. It has always been genetics and more!

www.redmondhistoricalsociety.org www.kirklandheritage.org

www.woodinvilleheritage.com

Our brown layer H&N

Brown Nick produces eggs of “spectacular” color—a rich warm brown, almost like milk chocolate! Not just that, all our breeds excel with industry-leading shell strength. Because it is the sellability of intact, uniformlycolored eggs, and not just bare numbers, that creates profits!

Take part in our year-long quiz and accumulate points for each correct answer—by doing so, you can win every month and keep collecting points to take part in our end-of-year contest. We will announce every quiz on the previous Friday. Each month comes with two rounds of the quiz, so you can play bi-weekly and have a greater chance of collecting more points.

In total, 24 quiz questions need to be answered correctly. We will announce each month’s winner the following month. And whoever gets the most points over the year will win a special prize!

Dr. vet. Roberto Espinola

New geneticist joins H&N International Headquarters

Continuously rising global market demands for the most adaptable, reliable and most efficient layer birds keep propelling H&N International’s growth: Our genetics department welcomes Roberto Emilio Espinola Alfonso to our team.

Reporting to Dr. David Cavero, Roberto will be involved in global research projects, and he will also be supporting the ongoing development and optimization of the breeding program that gives distributors and egg producers around the world the best birds adapted to their individual market needs.

Born in Asunción, Paraguay, Roberto’s fascination with animal health began way back in his early childhood. After attaining a bachelor’s degree in veterinary sciences at the Universidad Nacional de Asuncion in 2019, Roberto went straight on to also get his European Master’s in Animal Breeding and Genetics at the Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in 2022.

Despite his young age, Roberto has already acquired extensive work and travel experience, and he speaks four languages— English, Spanish, Portuguese and Guarani—fluently! And, fast learner as he is, he has already started tackling German as well. His knowledge covers field experience as well as research work. EXPO, the largest Paraguayan livestock exhibition, organized by the Paraguayan Rural Association, had him work with livestock genetics. Afterwards, he became a farm manager at Cabaña La Tranquera, overseeing the animals’ handling and support for daily farm tasks.

He participated in the ELLS Summer School “Contribution of animal breeding to global food security” at BOKU in Vienna, Austria, in 2021, and in an International Leadership Workshop for Rural Youth at Herrsching am Ammersee, in Germany, 2017.

With such a high level of activity, how does a prolific geneticist recharge? By going out for a run, keeping flexible with yoga, and going swimming. And also quality time with family and friends—and planning his next trips again.

The key to your profit

Four questions for Dr. Robert Espinola

What fascinates you about poultry?

It’s the magnitude of the industry’s contribution to quality food for the world. I think poultry is one of the most sustainable ways of animal breeding, and it’s in line with many SDGs, such as SDG2 ‘Zero hunger’ and SDG12 ‘Responsible consumption and production’.

What can genetics accomplish in future?

There are traits that have become more relevant or are of greater interest such as aggressive behavior, feather pecking, and even osteoporosis, and I am fascinated at how the estimation of genetic parameters can help select birds with desired features.

What remains crucial is to “unbox” and develop the genetic potential in the correct way, with all the proper procedures, maintenance and management tasks.

What makes poultry special in terms of genetics?

“I like the short generation interval compared to other livestock species, where the genetic improvement can be seen in a very short time.”

How

can distributors and farmers make sure they do that?

H&N International offers help in all sorts of ways, one way being the farming assistance app KAI for rearing and production.

People of my generation grew up with digital applications everywhere, so for me as a geneticist it’s kind of natural to see an industry-leading app like KAI as a supporting extension to our genetics. KAI really helps farmers to manage the birds right and be sure to get the full benefit they can provide.

THE MARY C. HEISDORF SCHOLARSHIP

OR “THE INNER CIRCLE OF PEOPLE REALLY INTERESTED IN POULTRY”

The Mary C. Heisdorf scholarship was founded on 1st June 1989. The founder was her husband Arthur J. Heisdorf, her widower after Mary had passed away in 1988.

In 1945, the newlywed Heisdorfs had started their own poultry business in Kirkland, Washington, USA. “At first it was just the two of them, working side-by-side for 16, 17 or 18 hours a day. At night, Mary did the office work” wrote awardwinning staff editor Eric Lacitis

in his article “The hatching of his labors has been no paltry achievement”, published on 3rd June, 1986, in The Seattle Times (WA). In the beginning, the couple couldn’t even afford a truck, so they first transported crates with chickens in a wagon they would pull. Just five years later the company employed almost 200 workers, thanks to Art Heisdorf’s pioneering revolutionary new breeding technique to select the pure line families of chicks based on the performance of their commercial offspring.

And in 1950 they started franchising their birds to distributing hatcheries. Of course, Mary was on the board of directors, as she had been a partner in every way to Arthur since the foundational day. She had always been an integral part of the business, helping first on the farm and in the hatchery, then with the financial end of the business, and finally graciously receiving visitors from around the world who became distributors of their products. Arthur Heisdorf himself received his BSc (Bachelor of Science) degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1936.

With the scholarship, Heisdorf honored the work of his late wife and business partner. And he found a way to keep the innovative, researching Heisdorf spirit alive—and pass it on to future generations.

University records of recipients date back to 2003. Between then and now, 36 awards have been given to the amount of US $41,780. But not every year has seen award winners, since the University of Wisconsin looks for the best and most promising matches with students. On the other hand, a couple of exceptional winners have received the scholarship more than once for their outstanding contributions to poultry science, driving it forward to new horizons—just like Art and Mary Heisdorf intended.

The Mary Heisdorf Scholarship is available to undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in poultry science or poultry research in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Students may not be majoring in poultry science to be eligible for this award, although most of the students are in the Animal & Dairy Science department.

The application process for this scholarship differs from the offers that students apply for directly: the Mary C. Heisdorf scholarship is initiated through the University of Wisconsin, where a board of professors select the prospects. The students use a general application for scholarships within the college, and then the board of faculty members matches students to the scholarship that suits their interests, strengths and their intrinsic motivation to begin a career in poultry.

The original intention of the Mary C. Heisdorf scholarship is “to bring the right people together” as Prof. Ron Kean, fafaculty associate and extension specialist in the Department of Animal & Dairy Sciences, explains. “The name Heisdorf is very well known among poultry geneticists. What makes the scholarship stand out amongst other scholarships is not the fact that it funds students, but that it welcomes them to the inner circle of people really interested in poultry.

AWARDS 36

Like Art and Mary Heisdorf, who had been really ‘into’ poultry!” The scholarship does not restrict students in any way in their choice of interest, as long as it involves poultry science.

The key to your profit

H&N International met two of the students:

Russianborn Elena Olson recalls how she was bewildered at her family getting to buy only chicken legs when she was little. “Where is the rest of the animal?” she would ponder, and this would open the doors to her career around food safety, international imports and exports of the world’s number one proteins: chicken meat and eggs.

Elena is a bacteriologist who focuses on how hygiene aspects influence the world, spanning the creation chain of poultry production. Her research focuses on bacterial burden and the transmission of pathogens such as Salmonella and Campylobacter during pre-harvest live bird and egg production. She believes that some microbial challenges surrounding food safety arise from consumer awareness.

For example, one of the latest transitions in egg production is the demand by consumers for the transition from traditional battery cage-housed laying hens to cage-free. With such new requirements, pathogen control becomes a new issue, and so new research is required to overcome the transmission of pathogens throughout the flock.

Another concern is the selective breeding and adaptability of poultry breeds to the local environment, including different climates and unique microbial challenges. Bacterial problems such as E. coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter are everywhere. A temperature difference in a highly dense house and a larger flock can have a compounding effect on the whole community and create a tremendous financial risk.

Since the application of antibiotics in animal production has been deemed a risk of transmitting antibiotic resistance to consumers, new vaccination and biosecurity protocols are also necessary to maintain safety throughout the farm-to-fork continuum. Elena’s goal is to create preventative controls implemented at critical poultry production steps to reduce the pathogen load in carcasses and eggs, and thus keep the family dinner safe.

Sean Baker is from Austin, Minnesota, and has a vast background in food quality, manufacturing, and ingredient development and application. Food biochemistry is the common denominator as well as Sean’s special interest. After receiving his Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin (UW) – Madison in 2020, Sean spent some time at the Dutch biotech and ingredient company, Corbion. Following a taste of industry, Sean returned to UW to pursue his PhD in Food Science. Sean’s research focuses on the interplay between heme protein (which gives meat its desirable color) and lipid oxidation in muscle foods. The associated biochemical processes affect flavor, aroma, taste, nutritional value—and the overall quality of meat and poultry products.

Sean travels frequently to trade events, such as his recent trip to the Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC) of the American Meat Science Association (AMSA). In his time outside the laboratory and classwork, Sean is the Director of Nucleate Cultivate, a student-led non-profit organization for cultivating the next generation of food and agri-tech innovators.

This program provides an international hackathon to equip graduate and undergraduate students with the necessary skills to enter and excel in the emerging cellular and acellular agricultural space.

The key to your

Dr. Rocco Emilio Scappaticcio

and Europe

Nutrition is one of the keys to driving layers and egg targets towards the individual’s desired outcome and local market demand. For Dr. Rocco Emilio Scappaticcio, it’s pure fascination, and one he has dedicated his professional life to:

Because nutrition alone already gives producers fascinating abilities. By administering different diets or by changing to feeding with new ingredients, you can really meet the requirements of the birds and solve the flock’s problems!” says Dr. Rocco Emilio Scappaticcio.

H&N International is very proud to broaden the team with another specialist for layer-targeted nutrition: Dr. Scappaticcio, the new nutritionist for the Americas

and Europe, joined on 1st January 2023 and will set out to support the regions immediately.

Born in Formia, Italy, and based in Spain by marriage, Dr. Scappaticcio brings more than eight years of experience in egg production alone to the team. Before joining H&N International, he worked as a technical nutritionist and Research and Development (R&D) department manager for one of the top egg producers in Spain.

Before that, he also acquired in-depth experience in working for different Italian companies and consulting services such as the Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori (CIA) and the public authority for agricultural market research and the information sector known as Istituto di Servizi per il Mercato Agricolo Alimentare (ISMEA).

His first work experience took him to Spain as a research technician assistant in the poultry research center of Nutreco. Consequently, a master’s degree in Animal Production and Health from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) soon followed. And of course, also Dr. Scappaticcios’ Ph.D., which was completed in June 2022, again at the UPM, which is about layer nutrition and titled “Influence of the energy and digestible lysine content of the diet on performance and egg quality of brown egg-laying hens”

Furthermore, after his thesis Dr. Scappaticcio has now published more about the nutritional effects and interdependencies of nutrients:

1 2

Effect of pre-peak feeding strategy on performance, egg quality, and tibiae mineralization of brown egg-laying hens from 27 to 62 weeks of age.

Effects of the source and level of digestible phosphorus in the diet on performance and egg quality of brown egg-laying hens from 64 to 76 weeks of age.

3

Influence of energy concentration and standardized ileal digestible lysine content of the diet on performance and egg quality of brown egg-laying hens from 19 to 59 weeks of age.

4

Effects of source and level of available phosphorus in the diet on performance and egg quality of brown egg-laying hens from 33 to 45 weeks of age.

5

Effects of dietary metabolizable energy and standardized ileal digestible lysine content of the diet on performance and egg quality of brown egg-laying hens from 18 to 41 weeks of age.

And when his mind is not focusing on layer nutrition, what is on his mind?

Definitely family time! I like to spend time with my loved ones, travelling together, seeing my daughter growing up, learning new things with her, and going out to dinner with my wife.”

Watching football with friends is another thing he enjoys in his spare time.

HISTORY OF DATA STORAGE

FROM PUNCHED CARDS TO CLOUD

Translated from original Source: https://www.swisscom.ch/de/b2bmag/sicherheit/lochkarte-cloud-backup-geschichte/ 18. April 2019Text: Felix Raymann | Medien: Keystone

Paper discs, magnetic discs, layers of silicon: the history of data carriers is patchy. But there is one theme that is constant across all storage media.

Storing data has occupied mankind ever since information began to be recorded. But let’s leave the past behind us and jump straight to the digital age. Let’s travel back to the 1960s, when mainframe computers were just beginning to establish themselves.

1930194019501960197019801990

The beginnings: from punched cards to magnetic storage

Today we can no longer imagine a computer without a screen. But in the early days, punched cards served as storage media and the output was made directly via the dot matrix printer.

The text-based screens of the 1980s adopted the 80-character display from the punch card.

This was not only tedious, but also slow. Magnetic storage had come along in the 1960s. The tapes on large spools secured the programs for electronic data processing. Backups were hardly an issue, because the first computers were pure calculating machines that did not yet allow automatic data storage.

Storage facilities diversified in the 1970s. In 1972, IBM introduced a flat, 8-inch diameter, rewritable magnetic disc. The floppy disk was born— OK, the first one appeared in 1969, but it was only readable. Up to 80 KB could be stored on a floppy disk. For the title picture of this article alone of around 240 KB, three such diskettes would have been necessary. Even so, the first floppy disk offered a thousand times the capacity of a punched card.

The triumph of the floppy disk

In the 1970s, technology began to shrink—and at the same time to become more powerful. When the first personal computers appeared towards the end of the decade, they used floppy disks in the comparatively handy 5.25-inch format. In the HD (High Density) version, the data carriers stored an incredible 1.2 MB of data. Now the title picture would have had space on one disc four times.

The floppy disk. (Image: IBM)

Until well into the 1980s, floppy disks not only developed into the standard data medium for the operating systems, programs and data. They also served as backup media for the PC. On mainframes, on the other hand, magnetic tapes were still being used.

Towards the end of the 1980s, floppy disks, now in a 3.5-inch format, had reached their storage peak. They offered almost 1.5 MB of space, i.e. around six times the title image of this article.

The key to your profit

Continuous backups

During the 1980s, magnetic tapes migrated from the computer center to the office. Tape quickly gained popularity as a cheap backup medium for servers on a local network. One tape a day and the data on the server was backed up. In addition, this backup medium is said to have a certain longevity, which made it interesting for archiving data—and still makes it interesting. Current tape drives based on the LTO-8 standard store 12 TB, and even more can be squeezed onto a tape using data compression.

Fast, big and cheap: the hard drive

The hard drive quickly replaced the floppy disk, because the advantages were overwhelming: hard disks are fast when reading and writing, offer a lot of storage space and are suitable for all common backup strategies. And with today’s magnetic storage capacities of up to 12 TB, a file as small as the title picture is no longer significant.

Still a popular medium for backups today: external hard drives. (Image: Alamy)

External hard drives are suitable for backing up small amounts of data because the storage can be disconnected from the computer after the backup and stowed away in a cabinet. However, external hard drives and RAID systems (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), which also mirror data, have a number of significant disadvantages. As a rule, they are not physically separate from the computers. In the event of a fire, water damage or burglary, there is a risk of data loss. In addition, ransomware can encrypt connected backup hard drives and make the backup unusable.

NAS:

the hard drive goes online

With a NAS (Network Attached Storage) providing storage in the local network, backup processes can be automated, since the memory is always available and does not have to be connected manually every time. That’s convenient, but doesn’t outweigh the disadvantages of external hard drives: there’s no physical separation. And for ransomware, NAS are a godsend.

Magnetic tapes were used for data storage and backup. © Image: Alamy

Backup to the cloud

As storage sizes have increased, so has the amount of data. When Windows 3.0 appeared in 1990, seven floppy disks were enough. In contrast, an image of Windows 10 is around 5 GB in size. Around 3,500 diskettes would therefore be necessary. And data and applications migrated from the local network to the cloud, too.

With this diversification, the requirements for backup have changed. If the server is running in the cloud anyway, it’s absurd to bring the backup back to the office. However, going the other way makes

sense. A backup in the cloud offers various advantages: the backup is automatic, and the data is locally separated and protected from dangers such as ransomware. The cloud provider takes care of replacing defective hard drives. And if the backup needs more space, it can simply be rented.

Nevertheless, because companies, as users of a cloud service, hand over their data, trust in the cloud provider is essential. Secure, encrypted access and appropriate data protection regulations are the basis for this trust.

The cloud provides fully automated backups that are available at all times—nowhere else is the data as secure as in the cloud. This applies in particular if the data centers are located in Switzerland and certified with the highest security level (Tier IV). And that also elegantly solves the ongoing issue that has run through the history of storage media: the data’s longterm security or backup.

Secure, encrypted access and appropriate data protection regulations are the basis for this trust.

KAI

UPDATES RELEASED WITH MORE FEATURES AND

EVEN GREATER USER-

FRIENDLINESS

H&N International’s invention KAI is unparalleled in the world’s egg producing industry! There are a couple of apps around for stand-alone tasks and with more or less support, but none of them comes close to what KAI has to offer. Sounds like steaming hot selfadulation? Don’t worry, KAI is really that great and we can prove it in detail. In fact, we are more than happy to prove it, because KAI is already a great success in making egg production more profitable, easier and safer for many users. KAI is currently the only farming assistant in the true sense of the word with genuinely individual, realtime assistance, prevention, consultancy and help 24/7!

It is almost like a human expert—just way better! KAI is a portable companion on your mobile device, coming along anywhere farmers want to take it, whether going to the barn, customer meetings—or on vacation. KAI is like a very advanced remote control that farmers can use to monitor and manage farm staff, coordinate tasks, keep track of achievements and get production reports. KAI’s artificial intelligence framework is tireless and learns from all tasks and data, issuing alerts or offering real-time advice if any parameters threaten to go off track. Prevention has never been easier!

And don’t worry: KAI is not on the chatty side. Alerts, support and advice come in text, not in the spoken word. You can take KAI to the barn, hen house or hatchery, and it won’t set off the birds. Your staff can take their time to read and, if necessary, re-read the texts again alone or together with co-workers. All the advice is short and clear, helping to eradicate errors or onboard new staff more easily.

DOL farmers and egg producers enjoy full control being put into their hands as KAI supports them in everything it takes to properly manage the genetics and to personalize their birds, so they perfectly match local market demands.

Speaking of birds: KAI supports monitoring for foreign breeds, too. If a farmer has no H&N birds yet, but likes to manage their own breeds with KAI, that is also possible. Because KAI connects all procedures and tasks with individual parameters and targets, taking local climate, lighting conditions and everything else affecting production into account—and it learns continuously.

KAI manages farm life by automated task reminders, alerting farmers of all the daily and weekly things to do, report and check on. The app designs the correct individual lighting program in line with the farms’ geolocation and season’s weather, and of course, it adapts to the individually desired egg targets. KAI’s on-board egg advisor feature supervises correct lighting and helps keep track of egg results.

All that would be little even without the artificial intelligence KAI is based on. Thanks to AI, KAI learns from all inputs into the daily tasks, results and check-ups, and then proactively offers targeted alerts, bespoke advice and matching solutions for any potential problems at that particular farm.

The key to your profit

The craziest thing about KAI is that it’s totally, entirely and absolutely free! Every customer of H&N, whether choosing the PRO, PREMIUM or ELITE business package, gets KAI for free as part of the entire solution bundle. And even personal trainer sessions can be booked for free if users want to get help in taking their first steps or want some support.

This means simply that all parties benefit from correct farming. And that’s because KAI makes the know-how in farming processes so direct, like a car key you just turn to start the engine, or the remote control to use your TV. No need for detours or reading lengthy manuals in search of problemsolving, spending hours to transcribe paper notes into Excel lists or fretting over the correct lighting program for your birds at your geolocation and for your individual egg targets. KAI designs all that especially for you so it works! As simple as GoogleMaps, which KAI has on board!

KAI comes for free as a double app for Android and iOS, plus there’s KAI Blue for rearing pullets and KAI Red for producing table and hatching eggs. Both, of course, are fully compatible and reflect the entire value creation chain.

Of course, KAI is polyglot and currently available in English, Spanish, Thai and Turkish—with more languages in the pipeline.

Latest releases: What’s new?

Our customers will surely be most interested in the anonymized benchmark view to get an idea of where your own results rank compared to similarsized farms. With strict data protection for all users, farmers can still see how they are doing compared to the global market. 1 2 3

Personalize KAI with the new Avatar feature. X Avatars come pre-installed. Still not the one you’re looking for? Let us know what your Avatar should be like, and the next release may feature it!

Shaky connection or no internet? No problem at all—with the new release, KAI can also be used offline for up to 5 days in a row. Mark the period you plan to be offline in advance, and be sure all the data gets saved until you go online again! Data you enter or change while offline will be saved and automatically synchronized as soon as you are back in the internet. The only exception is when you set up your account for the very first time and start keying in your flocks, houses and egg targets, when KAI needs to be connected to the internet.

4 5

Building a house is now superfast: almost in the snap of a finger, you can copy a house! Also, house management has been drastically simplified, too, so farmers can decide to add equipment like the number and type of feeders, number of drinkers, water system, ventilation etc. later, when they are on-site and can count them directly. You can de-activate and re-activate houses, too!

Data analysis has also been simplified in the Performance Quick Review—you can check how good you are versus preset standard data, and you can get a daily comparison of local versus standard data.

6

7

Also, the task manager has been upgraded: tasks can now be viewed in the new calendar feature, so organizing tasks on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and monitoring recurring tasks or keeping faster track of staff tasks is now all easy-peasy.

The new advanced search option allows users to look for any information they want to view directly, like for example vaccination dates, a particular flock or tasks—an advanced search links you directly to where you want to go next if you don’t want to move via the menu.

Although KAI is super-intuitive and self-explanatory for anyone using a handheld mobile cell phone, some users may appreciate getting initial support from another human being, so H&N is delighted to offer free sessions with a Personal Trainer from H&N who will help set up KAI and take your first steps.

FLEX YOUR MUSCLES, BOOK YOUR PERSONAL TRAINER!

KAI is the industry’s cutting-edge farming app— and it even comes with your own

trainer!

There are all sorts of reasons to not change to yet another app. You already have so many. You feel tied to a particular one or obliged to use this one and no other, or else you are simply used to the one you have had so far.

OK, but can YOUR app do this?

Offline data up to 5 days?

Create and export reports and analysis directly in the app? Send automatic task reminders?

Give warnings to help you prevent mistakes?

Create your individual lighting program based on your geo-locations?

Is your app unbiased, offering to monitor external breeds as well?

And finally— does your app come with free live demos and personal training?

Not that you need help, because, KAI is professionally set up and so simple and user-friendly that you can start using it right away. It’s self-explanatory— and it gives in-system help via the little round symbols marked “i” for “information”.

Our tutorials take you through each cool feature KAI has to offer – copying house information simply, de-activating houses or reactivating them with the click of a slider or planning your offline time ahead—you will find it all in demos on video.

But if you want a live demo from a real person in your time zone in Asia, the Americas or Europe, then let’s go and get it! Three personal trainers are available in English, Spanish, Italian, Hindi and German. Book your own trainer for free!

THE HEISDORF HISTORY

DBrian Joyer President of H&N International USA

espite the beginnings of H&N International in North America in 1945 and the triumphal progress of Nick Chick and the following H&N breeds into global markets, many US farmers are not aware that in fact they are breeding with the iconic layer hen. “Nick Chick? I have H&Ns” is a common reply.

Unlike other genetics, H&N International offers layer parent stock only, and only five powerful breeds—each of them excelling in the industry, leading in adaptability to local market demands and production conditions. They can thrive in any climate, any housing, with any feed and for any egg target. Brown, Crystal, Coral or Super—all, like the first breed Nick Chick, will “nick” with the local market and individual aims of local farmers.

Rocket Science, Computers and Chickens

Behind this potential of “nickchickability” is Arthur and Mary Heisdorfs’ heritage of scientific methods in the reciprocal breeding of layer hens, and their personal approach to farming. Many people will say breeding is not rocket science, but the Heisdorfs made it one.

They were meticulous: every detail mattered and was recorded. And the gargantuan amounts of data they accumulated from their farm were processed by some of the earliest International Business Machines, better known as IBM.

Computers were bulky, to put it mildly, and in those days Big Blue was still rather a small and unheard-of brand in most industries. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) started using an IBM 705 in June 1957 in their project Vanguard, which was even before the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, was founded in 1958!

And despite a growing interest among American farmers to also get “H&Ns”, H&N International North America set out to bring back the memory of how Nick Chick came to fame.

Unlike other genetics, H&N International offers layer parent stock only, and only five powerful breeds—each of them excelling in the industry, leading in adaptability to local market demands and production conditions.

Redmond Historical Society

Kirkland Heritage Society

Woodinville Heritage Society

Evgeny Kravchenko

H&N International welcomes Key Account Manager

Russia and CIS countries

Understanding the way things work, and being able to convey product benefits and value proposition to customers has been a primary theme in Evgeny Kravchenko's’ career, which started some ten years ago in the food packaging industry.

With a background in electromechanics, Evgeny started selling industrial equipment and soon worked his way up to selling packaging machines for the food industry, multi-tiered projects, and entire packaging solutions. It was mostly perishable goods like bakery products, confectionery, poultry, meat and cheese that were among the contents he brought to customers safely packaged.

And these customers were numerous, as he worked for leading international companies headquartered in Spain with a presence for example in Dubai, where he also lived temporarily and worked for one of the world’s leading dairy filling line suppliers and for companies in the entire CIS, including Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Evgeny is very well versed in B2B sales and marketing, and he strongly supports the concept of customer-centeredness:

Learning from every visit to a customer and, in return, offering new trends and solutions for the customers’ benefit is something I truly enjoy and hope to bring to good use also in my new responsibility for the customers in my region with H&N International”, says

Evgeny.

Like most of H&N International’s global team, Evgeny will also be based in his home office and will tend to the customers in his region from there.

BUSINESS BOOSTS

4th H&N Distributor Conference, Istanbul 2023

Have you ever boarded a time machine to look at your own potential future? That’s what we did at the 4 th Distributor Conference. With 85 participants in total, this one was a truly special event! Starting with a welcome dinner and a special appearance of three dancing dervishes, we took a deep dive headlong into three and a half days of genetics, biosecurity and business updates with a lot of interactive collaboration. And hard partying, too!

Three external speakers contributed their insights: Luis Carrasco, founder and CEO of the agency AgriNews, spoke about achieving marketing excellence with digital marketing and social media. One thing to remember is to create regular appeal and plan social media campaigning ahead with the target audiences’ needs in mind. We called it playtime in the afternoon, introducing our special edition of a popular board game we named “Trivial Poultry” to do a quiz about marketing, genetics, business, customers and markets— and of course, the genetics of H&N International.

Our evening was spent on the Bosporus aboard a dining ship with music and dancers entertaining. And the second day continued to power us forward fast.

Former director of Swiss BMILab and self-employed business coach Lutz Koegler led us through a fascinating fast-forward workshop catapulting eight small groups seven years ahead in time. What megatrends affect businesses? How can we prepare for them? How can we re-invent and develop our own business models? How can we be resilient and adaptable to future trends and market requirements all at the same time?

And it was great to see how much of it each group applied to their virtual journey to seven years from now! The key to

The afternoon saw us paying a visit to the two famous mosques of Istanbul: the Sultan Ahmet or Blue Mosque from the 17th century and, opposite, the Hagia Sophia that was built some 1,000 years earlier in the 6th century, with its dome often called the eighth wonder of the world. Traffic in Istanbul was against us, but boosted by energy we got off-and-on the bus again in almost no time to dress up and head for the gala party. And we certainly did some partying then!

Creativity was one key ingredient.

This evening culminated in the gala dinner and award-giving ceremony for the best flocks of white and brown parent stock. In 2023, the “Arty”, proudly named after our founder Arthur “Art” Heisdorf, went to Agromix from the Netherlands for the best white flock parent stock. The best brown flock parent stock is—again, for the second time in a row—to be found at Cabanha Barhy, Argentina.

Recovering from a rather short and colorful night, our last halfday started with wine again: our last speaker on financial excellence knew all about the challenges and opportunities of leading a family company, establishing structures, taking decisions and creating a sense of belonging. Pedro Ruiz, CEO of the iconic Spanish winery Alma Carraovejas, led us on a fascinating journey of planting grapevines and thinking way ahead, all towards the end product that customers will enjoy only years after.

Introducing all of the many marketing tools and support we currently offer required a bit of a tour de force, as there are very many things we tried to highlight in such little time, including KAI and KAI personal trainings KAI can turn anyone into an able staff member, yet another reason to test it and book a free demo session with one of the appointed KAI ambassadors: Dr. Pratap Rananavare, Dr. Emilio Scappaticcio or Saskia Riedel. Too fast? Rewind and check out the presentations in our campus.

PARTY with ARTY

BEST FLOCKS AWARDED AT H&N’S

DISTRIBUTOR CONFERENCE 2023, ISTANBUL

Outstanding work deserves outstanding acknowledgement! The highlight and culminating moment of each Distributor Conference is the Awards Ceremony to recognize the best flocks. It’s a brief moment compared with the outstanding work our distributors do every day, working towards excellence in their flocks.

Although H&N is a breed with a long-standing tradition since 1945, most of our distributors are pioneers and thought leaders in their country as they apply and roll out the unique potential of the H&N brand. That’s because H&N is really more than worldclass genetics: what we offer is a well-thought-through economic system enabling greater profits more safely and with greater value for all the participants in the value creation chain. To understand and embrace that takes some thought leadership and sometimes the readiness to question and improve processes.

Some of our longest-standing H&N distributors are already market leaders, while many are evolving strongly with new distributors and ramping up very fast. All of them are powerful market forces to reckon with.

H&N’s founder, Art Heisdorf, was also a thought-leader and pioneer. He became a force to reckon with as his scientific way of breeding and documenting selection choices revolutionized and modernized the poultry industry.

Thanks to Art Heisdorf’s methods, H&N International soon grew to be a world market leader in genetics and helped other brands grow big, too!

Art Heisdorf based everything he did on hard data. Art and his wife Mary were literally taking data from each and every single chick, each single hen, each single egg, every single day.

That’s because they wanted to base their selection on solid, systematic proof with scientifically transparent data through and through.

Art Heisdorf was not just a scientist, but also a computer pioneer.

The Heisdorfs were already using computer technology in their breeding process even before NASA used it to put a man on the moon! In fact, even before NASA was founded!

Their goal was simple: the best flock. Always just the best! And with a proven track record.

Therefore, in proud memory of our founder Arthur Heisdorf, better known by his nickname “Art”, the award for the best H&N flock is named “Arty”.

Unlike an Oscar® statue, which is in essence just gold-coated cheaper metal, the H&N “Arty” is solid laser-engraved glass, transparent all the way through—like Heisdorf’s breeding procedure.

Because hard data proves that H&N flocks are world-class winners!

And the winners are:

Congratulations to Bart Grosfeld and Hans Groot-Koerkamp of Agromix in the Netherlands for the best white Parent Stock flock of 2023.

And congratulations to Silvina Ermacora and Joaquín Suárez Ermacora of Cabanha Barhy, Argentina, for the best brown Parent Stock Flock in 2023!

Cabaña Barhy has won for the second time in a row, since they also won for the best flock in 2021 in Mallorca!

… AND AAACTION!!!

H&N ACADEMY 2023

– “ONE OF THE MOST INTERACTIVE MEETINGS I’VE EVER SEEN!”

Cuxhaven, 13th to 17th November 2023: Dynamic Learning became one of our favorite ways long before sharing knowledge and acquiring more of it! And we can’t get enough of it. Also, our November Academy was rich in interaction, collaboration and exchange.

Together with our valued friends and customers from Algeria, Angola, Brazil, Morocco, Nepal, Spain, Uganda and the USA, we went through some high-energy days:

Starting with a lavish welcoming dinner at a new venue, the Hotel Strandperle with its unique Belle Époque Art Deco crossover-inspired interior design, the group spent Tuesday discussing future developments and putting the focus on correct lighting programs. Small breakout groups maximized the collaboration. Bowling, a tradition we have come to love over the years, kept up the dynamic momentum before we rounded off the first day with dinner.

On Wednesday, we shifted the focus towards the “Dos and don’ts in rearing”, production and nutrition—and our external speaker, nutritionist Rick Kleyn from Spesfeed Animal Nutritional Consultants in South Africa, cast some new and old light on the specifics of layer nutrition. Xabier Arbe, Managing Director of H&N International and a nutritionist himself, introduced Rick as “one of the superstars of Poultry Nutrition”

He surely and truly is, because he put a few things straight that otherwise may get lost in the subject:

Especially Rick’s explanations of the difference between protein and energy, which may sound totally obvious, but for far too many of us it’s not! –

proved to be an interesting, enlightening look behind and inside the “system” of nutrition.

There were some basic truths, like how to get to one calorie, which have almost been obliterated by human food marketing itself!

Believe it or not, human food marketing has to a great extent been transferred to or rubbed off on animal nutrition, creating a boatload of misconceptions! Nutrition is a science, and Rick recovered— or rather re-excavated—some simple facts that are basic to anyone’s nutrition:

Feed is made up of four major components, and it is not just about protein. Human beings and animals convert food into dietary components and use these to maintain body functions and create tissue, be it meat or eggs. So, what’s the difference? Humans eat precisely the same things as chickens—just cooked. Grain and protein. But low and behold, humans don’t lay eggs!

Our body doesn’t know what it’s eating. It just keeps breaking down and metabolizing substances, and these are used to maintain the system or create tissue, depending on the type of animal or bird consuming the feed. Sounds simple, but many people (not nutritionists) let themselves get fooled by a protein story that originates from adverts about human food, such as the products sold for body-building! Small group workshops intensified the subject.

Our special edition of the world-famous board game Trivial Pursuit, H&N’s own “Trivial Poultry”, combined facts with fun as we wrapped up the second day. Well, wrapped up? Not yet—the Karaoke Night after dinner did that. Rumor has it that the last singers—and really just about everybody sang!—left the stage well past midnight!

AAfter Wednesday, which could well have been headlined as “stomach-related things”, Thursday again shifted the focus towards Avian Influenza and respiratory diseases, not without a lecture for “Troubleshooting Feed” issues,

to keep up the momentum from Wednesday. There was plenty of room for asking questions and getting good answers thanks to more breakout groups and an “Ask the H&N Team” round.

Rick Kleyn, who has seen a great many meetings during his world-spanning career, said:

This was the most interactive meeting, I’ve ever been to!”

Well, let’s have more of this! If you would like a recap of the Academy, please find more information on our Campus.

Let us welcome Dr. Amel Rabia as our accomplished and dedicated junior veterinarian at H&N International. Amel brings with her a wealth of experience in the poultry field, having served as the head of a poultry complex in Algeria.

Her journey has been shaped by a family deeply rooted in the poultry industry, with over two decades of leadership in Algeria.

DR. AMEL RABIA

Veterinarian Junior at H&N International

Amel's educational path reflects her commitment to excellence. After pursuing veterinary medicine at the University of

Constantine, she dedicated six years to obtaining two degrees: a master's degree in hygiene and quality control, and a veterinary doctorate. Armed with this extensive knowledge, Amel embarked on a two-year tenure as a veterinarian, specializing in parent stock layer and commercial chickens in Algeria.

But why poultry?

Amel's motivation lies in the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of the poultry industry. She recognizes the pivotal role of a poultry veterinarian in navigating the industry's challenges, from emerging diseases to zoonotic threats and the pressing issues of antimicrobial resistance. Amel is driven by a strong passion for contributing to the sustainable development of the industry, ensuring that it thrives amidst the complexities of the modern era. Amel's skills set her apart in the field, encompassing a deep understanding of animal behavior, diagnostic expertise, infectious disease control, timely vaccination practices, autopsies, and a strong sense of teamwork. Her commitment to ongoing improvement is evident in her additional training in general antibiogram and general microbiology.

Beyond her professional pursuits, Amel finds joy in various hobbies and leisure activities when she's not immersed in her veterinary responsibilities.

Her multifaceted background, combined with her passion for the poultry industry, makes Dr. Amel Rabia a great asset to H&N International and a sure driving force in the ongoing success of our poultry endeavors.

LOOKING AT THE SYMBOLISM AND SYSTEM BEHIND THE DIAMOND

Yes, they are beautiful to look at! And they are probably not just a girl’s best friend! But what is it that we have going on with that diamond symbol?

You’ve probably seen it in the Diamond Posters, the corresponding Diamond Video and now the customer testimonials. But why did we choose it? Because it’s the perfect symbol for the concept of adaptability!

Visualizing a valuecreating concept:

Adaptability

H&N birds are the world’s most adaptable breeds. Adaptability means that the birds will adapt to your local needs, as you personalize them in the true sense of the word. And personalization has become super-easy and safe with the help of our farming assistant KAI. The birds will be what you want them to be and what you make them. They will produce the egg targets you and your markets demand, and they will do so in any housing, any climate and with any feed. The birds are flexible and versatile so as to create hard value—in sellable eggs with world-leading shell quality.

OK, but where’s the diamond in this?

Adaptability is a set of traits that work together, in conjunction. Traits are very often looked at as if they were separate qualities that stand alone with no effect on one another, although any trait can only be found active inside a species. Outside, however, on a spreadsheet or in a brochure, one trait never represents an entire species. It can even be misrepresentative to look at just one trait or judge from looking at just a few!

Not even in a machine a does a trait stand on its own, nor in mechanics a certain characteristic or feature—quite the opposite. A car’s speed is directly influenced by the type of fuel, design and aerodynamic drag, the vehicle’s body weight, and the material used—to name just a few influences. Likewise, since all traits only exist in a single living organism, the traits in H&N birds also influence and empower one another. All traits purposefully work in an orchestrated, systemic way—coordinated to give customers exactly this world market-leading adaptability that makes them stand out.

Adaptability is a system, a set of traits that work perfectly together! Working together—OK, but don’t we all do that in one way or another? What makes this “working together”, this live adaptive power so special, so spectacular as a concept?

Why adaptability is more than just the sum of traits

This is where the diamond enters the stage! Because a diamond, too, is more than the sum of its parts! Have you ever looked at, and we mean really looked at a diamond? Its lines, its facetted surfaces, its sparkling reflection, and its perfect geometry?

In the austere language of chemistry, a diamond is the cubic modification of the element carbon, or crystalized carbon, with the atomic number of 6 in the periodic table. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent, meaning its atom makes four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds.

The key to your profit

Physically described, a diamond is the hardest known material and can be transparent or opaque with weak or no birefringence—that’s the optical property of a material, its ability to break light into two mutually polarized sub-beams. A diamond is an optically anisotropic media, which means there is a directional dependence of the light-breaking process. Put simply: the fascinating sparkle we see when we look at the vivid optical concert of dark, light, and transparent surfaces and the white, light gray, dark gray, rosé, orange, minty, vanilla, lilac and powder blue pastel shades and hues. Hence the fascination of the object as it breaks the light when we move it or move with it while wearing jewelry—or as we move around it if we cannot touch it at all ourselves because the diamond is kept in a glass cabinet. A few famous diamonds can only be seen through safety glass, or on rare occasions on TV:

Famous Diamonds

The Great Star of Africa aka Cullinan I (530.20 carats) in the British sovereign’s scepter

The Orloff (189.62 carats) in the Russian Czar’s imperial scepter

Koh-i-Noor (105.60 carats) in the British Imperial State Crown

Compare to eggs …

Nick Chick Avg EW: 61.6 g would equal 308 carats

Brown Nick Avg EW 64,2 g would equal 321 carats

Super Nick Avg EW 63,5 g would equal 317.5 carats

Clike Carbon, Carat, Color, Clarity and Cut

Color, clarity, carat weight and cut make up a grading system that determines the quality and price of a diamond. The measurement of carat indicates the mass of gemstones: 1 metric carat = 0.2 gr or 200 mg.

The rarest color in natural diamonds is red. Only very few small red ones are currently known; they are so scarce that it is estimated that one gram or half a carat could cost around five million US dollars!

Of the nine or ten or more fancy cuts, the classical round brilliant cut is the most popular—all the lines unite at one point, the culet, and from there they seem to blossom out, unfolding into a firework of lines and shines!

Let’s not forget, it’s only carbon! That’s the fourth most abundant element in the observable universe and part of what humans are made of, on average 12 to 18 percent of us, about 14 kg in the average adult human! How can such an everyday and everywhere element be so special? How does a diamond dazzle more than the sum of all its parts? And why does the fascination with diamonds, their concept, even affect us when they are not real and only made of glass—or if we see them just as a digital visual like Marchello Barenghi’s amazing speed drawing?

It’s because of their concept and their anatomy

Diamond: Anatomy in round brilliant cut

Upper part: crown, with the table, star, bezel and upper girdle facets

The girdle

Lower part: pavilion with lower girdle facet, pavilion facets and culet

For centuries, diamonds have been associated with value, wealth, power and beauty, not just because they cost money, but because they display perfection, with ideal aesthetics of coordinated parts—the beauty of coordination! It is that concept of coordinated traits in H&N birds that allows you to produce edible gems that earn you hard profits!

6

H&N UK, UK

7

Carlos

James John Wignall Farooq Sarwar

Industria Genetica Avicola De Guatemala SA, Guatemala

Zimbabwe

Cassie Jackson

Saurav Manandhar Minnich Poultry, USA

Adhunik Poultry

Breeding Farm, Nepal

11

Chenouf Houssam

Tiago Marques

Jaynel Pelayo

Sarl Sidra Bovins, Algeria

H&N Peninsular, Spain

Aviabest Farms Inc., Philippines

OVERVIEW OF STICKERS

Imprint

Editor

Marketing Department H&N International GmbH, Am Seedeich 9, 27472 Cuxhaven, Germany, Phone: +49(0)4721 564-0

E-Mail: info@hn-int.com Internet: www. hn-int.com

AgriNews, Pasaje Antoni Macia i Fonoll, 23, Puerta C Planta 2 Oficina 2.11 A-2, 08302 - Mataró - Barcelona (España)

Phone: +34 93 115 44 15

E-Mail: info@grupoagrinews.com www.agrinews.es

Photo Credits ©H&N International