Green Label Poultry
A visit to the Suffolk Show in the summer of ’22 gave James Newman, a Farms Area Manager at Green Label Poultry a light-bulb moment when he encountered FeedAlert silo monitoring for inventory control, James knew this was a revolutionary gadget for the business.
James’s role includes managing the feed for all his contract farms, growers for the well-known Gressingham Duck label. James said ‘Our team know a theoretical bin balance however they have to make contact with customers to check feed levels before scheduling orders.’
Green Label Poultry has a mix of company and contract farms to grow their birds, the Customer Support team liaise with the grower to propose delivery dates and amounts, the grower then visually checks the silo to confirm what has been proposed is right. In theory this sounds easy but sometimes the logistics of it can be quite challenging as the grower is obviously busy and isn’t always available to check levels at that particular time. Not all silos have level indicators and so ‘innovative’ ways to check levels include hitting the side of the silo with a stick, or even throwing a golf ball up the silo and listening to the change in tones, yes really… so It’s no surprise that even though imaginative, these ways of estimating feed levels occasionally resulted in over / under orders and even problematic outages!
“the systems are consistently accurate to within half a tonne on a 12t silo”
Suitable for all makes of silo and at only £450 a system James knew FeedAlert was a game changer. Quite excited at the prospect of how reliable data could transform this process he introduced the monitoring equipment to one of his growers, they agreed that it would not only save time but also allow more efficient deliveries.
So, the first four systems were installed at one site. ‘Three crops later, the systems are consistently accurate to within half a tonne on a 12t silo’ James told us, he continued ‘which was perfect for the inventory control that was needed, not only are they now able to schedule accurate amounts for just in time deliveries it also means that at the end of a crop they are able to confidently run the feed down to a days’ worth of food, this informed management means feed doesn’t sit in the silo or need bagging off, it stays fresher and the change to a different ration is accommodated much easier.’ ‘The silos include a selection of 4 and 6 legged structures, they do say the accuracy can reduce slightly on 6 legs, you can add an extra sensor if you want but for us the accuracy is fine for what we want’.
James said ‘the FeedAlert team at Collinson have been brilliant, supporting us to make sure we got the best accuracy on each silo’ ‘installation is straight forward and easy but as every silo is different; number of legs, the base, age, there can be a ‘lazy leg’ on some structures where you simply have to move the sensor to a different leg, their customer support made sure they were all spot on.’
Both parties have visibility of the data, which can be viewed via the App or Portal, efficiency savings can be made by good use of the reliable intelligence the system provides, labour and time savings are considerable, it is also better from a biosecurity perspective with no need to move feed and the reliable feed supply prevents the downtime of outages, the accuracy the systems provide has transformed feed management.
Both James and the contract grower are thrilled at the control FeedAlert gives them over feed management, it is just easy, that’s why James has started to introduce it to growers at other farms with two more sites just having the hardware installed.