This week on the podcast Matt sits down with Marc de Beer, President of Aviagen North America. They begin by diving into how Marc got involved with animal science and nutrition and how Aviagen uses genetics in the boiler breeding business to supply the best breeding stock to poultry companies around the world. They continue by discussing Marc’s journey from scientist to president of the North America division of the company and how he approaches changes and challenges, such as the rise of artificial intelligence and the ongoing issue of Avian Influenza. The conversation concludes with Marc elaborating on the mission of Aviagen and their efforts toward efficiency and sustainability. 

it, you know, we weren't and we want to be the

very, very, of course, like anybody would tell you, we want

to be the best at it. But that is what we do. And that's what

we will do.

Excellence, professionalism, in.novation and

collegiality. These are the values the Sam M. Walton College

of Business explores in education, business and the

lives of people we meet every day. I'm Matt Waller, Dean of

the Walton College and welcome to the Be EPIC podcast. I have

with me today, Marc de Beer, President of Aviagen North

America. Thank you so much for joining me today, Marc.

Hey, thanks for having me.

And, Marc, you have such an interesting career.

You're from South Africa. You came to the University of

Arkansas and you got a PhD in Animal Nutrition. You went to

work for Aviagen back in 2008. And then you went to DSM,

Elanco. And you moved up the ranks in Elanco fairly quickly.

And now you're President of Aviagen North America. So let's

start our conversation by talking about Aviagen. What do

they do?

Sure, yeah, Aviagen is a is a company in the

industry, we call ourselves a primary breeder. So if you're

buying chicken, to eat from someone, we're the guys who

supply the breeding stock to the people you buy your chicken

from. So what we do is, really the core of what we do is

genetics, we're trying to select the very best of all of our

lands, put them together and ultimately create the breeding

stock that gets gets bought by our customers that then produces

the chicken that you eat. So yeah, we're a breeding company,

a genetics company at our core. Yep.

How did you get interested in animal science and

animal nutrition? What I know, that's what brought you to the

United States. But where does your interests stem from?

So you know, I grew up on the East coast of

South Africa, we grew up in a fairly rural area along the East

coast, lots of sugar cane. But you know, we were always sort of

exposed to the natural world. And I was fascinated with wild

animals. You know, we were lucky to be in an area where, you

know, there was lots of wild animals, all the traditional

stuff you see with the African game. And so actually, I

ultimately studied animal science, because I wanted to

become a Game Ranger. And I wanted to to learn about

leopards, and lions and elephants. And after a little

while, in university, I had the courage eventually to ask one of

our professors when we might start learning about, you know,

lions and leopards and the like. And basically got the surprise

to find out that animal sciences really production agriculture,

right. And so my interest really was in wild animals. And then,

after spending a little while in college, I realized, well, I'm

actually studying agriculture and production. And so yeah, and

I had started I kind of enjoyed it and got into the nutrition

side of it. It just it was it was a discipline that interested

me, I guess more than some of the others. And so, yeah, so it

was actually a little bit of ignorance I guess that got me

into into the the area. Yeah.

After you went to work for Aviagen, by the way,

where's Aviagen out of what, where's the headquarters?

Our global headquarters are in Huntsville,

Alabama. That's North Alabama. Yeah.

And what types of livestock do you focus on?

At Aviagen it's exclusively poultry. Right? So

we're focused on we have a broiler breeding business. So

those are chickens. So we're producing again, the breeding

stock that ultimately produces the chicken you eat. And then we

also have a division that focuses on turkeys. And so we

have Aviagen turkeys, which, you know, of course, they do the

same type of work, the genetic selection, etc, to produce the

turkey that goes into the into the market.

Well, you know, it's, it's interesting. The

turkey is, is most of the turkey consumed in North America, or is

it? Because I know you know, we lived in China for a while and

it was not easy to find turkey at any time there.

Yeah, turkey is definitely a US dominated

phenomenon, right. There's definitely pockets of turkey

consumption around the world but the US is for sure the majority

of the turkey market around the world so it's a far less global

business, I guess than the chicken business, which

obviously is essentially ubiquitous now around the world,

but you have chicken, local chicken industries. But turkey

is definitely more localized certainly in the US. And

obviously, we have turkey sandwiches, which is a big

driver. And then of course Thanksgiving is, which is a huge

driver of demand for turkey in the US. Yeah.

But you're focused on the breeding stock both for

chicken and turkey. Correct?

The company is. I myself focused on my part of the

business is exclusively focused on the chicken side. Yeah.

So how, how does that, I would think that there

wouldn't be a lot of difference between the breeding chickens

and the others. What is the difference there?

Yeah, I think you'd be surprised that at the

level of diversity in the gene pool, right, it's really

fascinating. We've got, of course, a whole host of lines,

you know, which are, we have pure lines, which which have

kind of, you've been perpetuated through through a long period of

time. And within those lines, you know, there's there's traits

or characteristics that we can measure and select for. And

there's, there's still a lot of genetic variation within those

lines. And so you can find, you know, individuals who are, you

know, uniquely competent in certain traits, and then select,

obviously, you know, ideally more and more of those

individuals, depending on what you're looking for. So, of

course, because we're growing chickens, you know, we're

looking for birds that are efficient, we're looking for

birds that are strong, have very healthy immune systems can

manage in difficult conditions. So there's a whole host of

traits. But yeah, you they might, a lot of them might look

the same to the untrained eye. But the rate at which they grow

and eat, the degree to which they feather these kind, there's

a whole host of things, probably, you know, approaching

50 different things that we're measuring very, very accurately

and trying to, again, combine those traits and find out the

best individuals who have the best overall breeding value

within a given line.

So do you have, I would guess you've got a lot of

expertise in your company around genetics, probably.

Sure sure absolutely yeah. We do.

And, I would think, I had seen a presentation on

genetics, and chicken, or just in general, but they use chicken

as an example, a few years ago, and it was quite interesting.

You know, this presentation made by a company that does genetics

for for chicken, I can't remember. I think they're in

Northwest Arkansas, actually.

Yeah, most likely is Cobb.

Yes.

Yes. They are based out of Northwest Arkansas

so that with Cobb would be our primary competitor. Yeah.

Okay. So I have a great idea then, of what you do.

But they showed a presentation where they showed what chicken

looked like, I don't know, 50-60 years ago, and the evolution of

the chicken over that time, and it was it was really

Fascinating how they, how they've been selected.

interesting,

And, yeah, they're just, of course, you know, you get a

picture of a bird that the you know, comes from genetic stock

that's 50 or 60 or 70 years that it's gone unselected, yeah

you're gonna see really meaningful differences in that

individual relative to its peers from today.

Well in this picture, they had, like, they

had like, on one side a picture of the chicken standing there.

And then how much feed it took them next to it to get to

wherever it was ready. And then they had one today. So the

chicken on the left was smaller, but had a bigger pile of food.

It was pretty interesting.

Yeah, I mean, that's been a huge part of the

progress, right? Finding finding individuals, or families that

are very efficient at converting feed into meat. Because

ultimately, that's what our industry does, right? We we take

different plant proteins, grains and other goodies, and, you

know, run them through a chicken that then converts that into a,

you know, an attractive protein for humans to consume. So that's

the efficiency with which they do that it's one of the biggest

drivers of obviously profitability, but you know you

sort of got the knock on effects of, you know, what that does to

utilization of resources, right? If it takes a lot less to do

what we used to do, and we get more out of it, then obviously,

we're kind of contributing to doing things more efficiently

and sustainably as well. So, yeah, it's remarkable when you

see it visually, visually, like that, the impact of 50, 60, 70

years of selection, it's stunning what what's been

achieved.

So as president, you know, obviously, you have a

PhD. You understand science well, but now you're President

so you're having to lead the company, you're having to set

the direction of the company, get people aligned, motivate

people, invent a path forward, solve problems, et cetera, et

cetera. So that's a big shift. You know, really, basically, for

you from your PhD till now, you know, we're talking, what, 15

years?

About 15 years. Yeah.

So you've had to go from scientist to leader,

manager. How has that transition been? Has it been challenging

for you or what do you say?

Yeah, it's a it's a good question. I, you know, I,

you know, part of the story starts with where I fell into

the science of it by mistake, like I described in the

beginning, right. So I wasn't, I came to be very passionate about

it, and I love it. But it wasn't necessarily you know, where I

wanted to be in my whole career. So I think it was within a week

of starting at at Aviagen, I sort of naively told my boss

that although you hired me as a nutritionist, I really hope I'm

not a nutritionist 10 years from now, and I kind of, you know,

made that that happen, you know, I was when I, when I left

Aviagen, I went into a marketing role at DSM. And that was kind

of the first step, you know, evolving into a more general

management or business management type role. So, yeah,

it's, you know, to the question of whether it's been

challenging? For sure, I think it's, but it's a lot of fun,

right? Your learning all the time and kind of seeing things

and I'm fortunate, I guess, to ask a lot of questions. You

know, I'm not afraid to wander a little bit about, you know, what

it would take to do something different. And, you know, when

I, when I took on a broader business management role of DSM,

I had to obviously, I interviewed with the board over

in Switzerland, and my boss at that time suggested that I brush

up my understanding of finance a little bit, which was very good

advice, considering I had very little understanding of it. And

so just started reading books. And you know, on the plane over

for my interview, reading Finance for Dummies, at least

trying to get some of the terminology down. So yeah, I

guess just the curiosity for learning. And so yeah, it's been

challenging, but it's been fun, right, and you get to see a more

broadly look at the business as opposed to purely from a

scientific perspective. So yeah, that's, that's kind of what I

like, and probably why I've gravitated a little bit in that

direction.

I would imagine in your organization, you're also

having to lead a lot of scientists, is that right?

Sure. Yeah, yeah, we have a lot of technically

minded people, for sure. Yep.

So what do you see as the biggest challenges, for a

technical company like yours, going forward? And specifically,

one of the things I'd like to ask you about is artificial

intelligence, not just our particularly generative AI,

because, you know, they're we're finding applications of

generative AI in computer programming, in marketing, in

all areas of business. So how about your business? How do you

see generative AI having an impact, if at all?

Sure, yeah. You know, we obviously, you know,

that I guess the whole world is sort of recognizing and learning

and adapting to, to, not just AI, but a whole host of

different technologies that, that are emerging. And, you

know, obviously, we're also at the front end, like probably

most, sort of not yet, people who aren't in the midst of

developing it, I think the rest of us all feel like we're

learning on the fly a little bit, I think there's a, there's

a lot of things that that humans do, that become very repetitive,

and I'm not, I'm not suggesting that the only things but you

know, just observing, you know, we also, of course, in order to

produce our product, we have a large number of flocks of birds

that, you know, historically, people, you know, husbandry was

was based on a lot of observation, right, spending a

lot of time watching animals, understanding their behavior,

seeing their habits, how environmental factors impact

them, doing it, over the amount of time and the scale that we do

it at, it's become more and more difficult to get human beings

who can have that level of detail and continued focus so

that our husbandry is as effective as it always has been.

So there's an area for example, where, you know, with computer

vision, we can observe behaviors at a large scale, over extended

periods of time, that can inform us about many things as it

relates to the flock and the flock health, flock behavior,

fertility, you know, interactions between

individuals, welfare. So there's one example I think of how we

could use that and which we are we actively doing that right now

including visual monitoring, but sound monitoring. And, you know,

again, having a human being sit there observing these things is

incredibly inefficient and not nearly as accurate as what a

machine can do it right. And we're learning that pretty

quickly. I think learning the full scale application of that

we're getting there, right, I think it would be premature to

suggest we've sort of said, well, great, we've turned over

the entire functions. But that's an area where I think we can be

a lot more effective. And then one I'm, you know, personally

fascinated by is planning, right, because when you've got a

biological product, a live product, we're not just talking

about a perishable product, we're talking about a living

animal that we're potentially shipping across the world, you

know, we could be shipping day old chicks to China, we could be

shipping them down, you know, essentially across the world.

Our ability to plan and make the most efficient supply chain

possible, when you've got a whole host of variable

biological inputs. It's extremely difficult for for a

group of humans to do it. And so maybe that's an area as well,

where where we could benefit a lot from from essentially having

it done by a machine with with the right inputs and learning

along the way. So, again, we're at the front end of that,

I know that your mission, the mission of the

company, is to ensure that the company, it's about having food

on every table, how do you how do you make sure your company

stays focused on that mission and doesn't get sidetracked by

things that come along?

So we have a few things, our own as we were owned

by a family, the Erich Wesjohann and his family own our company.

And one thing that our owners, I think have been exceptional at

is ensuring focus. So it's very tempting, when you have a strong

company like ours, and you have you know, we're in a very strong

position. And we work with a lot of customers. And there's a lot

of adjacent, you know, opportunities that come along

and can be very distracting, they can be very lucrative or

very interesting. They've done an exceptional job of saying

Aviagen will focus on broiler breeding and genetics, you know,

if there's interest, because we have a customer who has

nutritional needs, or vaccine needs, or diagnostic needs, etc,

we might ultimately enter into that, but it will be through a

separate entity, it won't be through Aviagen. So we've, we've

been very, very focused on it. And I don't think, you know,

whether we tried or not our owners, I think are pretty

disciplined about making sure we stay focused on that. So our

mission is pretty clear, we want to provide the very best

breeding stock to our customers so that they can grow chickens

to keep people safe, affordable, abundant protein. And that's it,

you know, we weren't and we want to be the very, very, of course,

like anybody would tell you, we want to be the best at it. But

that is what we do. And that's what we will do, we will not

deviate from that. So it's not hard to stay focused in our in

our world, it won't take long to get redirected if we if we get

off track.

What are some current trends or challenges in

the poultry breeding industry? And how are you staying ahead of

these changes to remain competitive.

So obviously, the issues that our industry faces

are the ones that are most interesting to us, right? So

we're trying to ensure that whatever we send our customer

gives them the best chance to succeed. Important to realize

that, and I don't have a picture for you, but it'd be good if I

had a picture to show you. Our most valuable, you know, the

pedigree level are very, very best birds, their offspring will

eventually reach the market, somewhere between four and five

years from now. So all of the decisions we're making the

selections, the genetic progress we make, you know, once we've

made those selections at the pedigree level, we've

essentially locked in what's coming for the next 4 to 5

years, right. So we do spend a lot of time thinking about what

the sort of the medium term future holds. And we get a lot

of time from our customers, and we end so you know, things that

obviously, efficiency and the ability to produce, as always,

you know, produce efficiently is always going to be a challenge.

So, you know, commodity prices have, you know, the input costs

of our customers are very high. Meat prices today are not super

high. They've been pretty volatile. So those things will

always be big drivers as a sort of foundational drivers of our

customers business and we won't lose focus on those. Something

very topical right now. And it's it's virtually a global

phenomenon at this point is Avian Influenza. And so, you

know, it's probably, you know, people in the United States

would have picked up on that in that context of egg prices, you

know, looking at the cost of an egg in a grocery store. And so

we've had a sort of an ongoing Avian Influenza challenge.

Europe has been particularly hard hit by that. And then of

course, here in the US, we've also had our challenges. So, and

many countries around the world for that matter, as a breeding,

there's export limitations if you if you run into AI or Avian

Influenza in a particular area, it creates export limitations

and creates, you know, other challenges for the business. So,

redundancy and security of supply is a huge part of our

sort of, you know, challenge looking forward, you know, how

do our customers feel certain they can get our products,

whatever the disease challenges might be in a given part of the

world. So, that'd be a big one. And obviously, we do that

through biosecurity through, you know, redundant supply bases,

hopefully, we can have, you know, if one place gets locked

down, we've got somewhere else to bring birds from. So those,

and then I think, you know, it's a little bit of a what, even if

it's a buzzword anymore, but our customers are challenged more

and more, I think with questions about their sustainability

initiatives, their footprint, you know, we've done a lot of

work, being more efficient, inherently helps you be more

sustainable, right? So, but we've also got a lot of work

going on and how we ourselves can be more more efficient and

sustainable and then sort of pass that on to our customers

down the road.

That's terrific. Well, Marc, thank you so much

for joining us today. And also, congratulations on your

remarkable career. Very impressive.

Thank you much. Appreciate it. Enjoy being here.

On behalf of the Sam M. Walton College of

Business, I want to thank everyone for spending time with

us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe

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