What changes when we stop thinking about micronutrition as simply adding more products and start thinking about precision?
We caught up with Christos Antipatis, Vice President of Global Strategic Marketing and Technology, Cargill Micronutrition & Health Solutions, to get his perspective on what micronutrition means, what the industry can overlook and why small and precise nutrition interventions can have a much bigger impact.
Having spent his career in animal nutrition and health, Christos has seen the conversation evolve.
"For much of my career, the industry focus has been on improving performance by adding more inputs. What excites me about micronutrition is that it shifts the conversation from quantity to precision."
Q : When you think about micronutrition, what makes it different from simply adding more products?
Christos: Micronutrition isn’t about adding more and more products and expecting animal health or performance to improve. It’s about applying the right solution, at the right time and in the right amount.
The science is also about understanding how nutrients interact with each other, and how they interact with the animal’s microbiome. When we understand these interactions and how a micronutrient works, we can apply it more precisely for the different conditions in which it’s being used.
So, instead of focusing on volume, we focus on precision.
Q : What do you think people most often overlook about micronutrition?
Christos: A lot of the time, micronutrition is seen as a collection of feed additives or products. What people can overlook is the science behind it and the importance of going deeper into the species and the animal.
It starts with understanding the biological systems that drive performance in a given species. Micronutrients are used in small quantities, but they can influence immunity, gut health, nutrient utilization and resilience.
Applying the right science under different conditions helps us be precise, but also practical. That’s where a species-first understanding is important, because what we recommend has to make sense for the animal and the production conditions in which it will be used.
Q : What makes micronutrition so important to animal health and performance?
Christos: Micronutrition helps shape animal health and performance from the inside out.
It supports key biological functions and helps optimize interactions within the diet and the microbiome. That can help animals use nutrients more effectively, support their health and maintain resilience under pressure. And we can see how that understanding translates into practice.
In dairy, for example, we have our Cargill ANH HL+ Herd Lifetime Performance program. It takes a longer-term view of performance, combining benchmarking and insights with our nutrition and dairy expertise to identify what drives lifetime performance and where we can help producers take their herds to the next level.
Micronutrition, of course, is an important part of that integrated approach. Diamond V™ Dairy Shield, for instance, is a postbiotic micronutrition solution designed to support dairy animals across different life stages, from helping calves grow strong to supporting cow health and performance, even under stress. It’s a good example of how we can take that longer-term view and bring it together with our expertise and targeted micronutrition to support productivity throughout the animal’s life.
In poultry, Galleon™ helps us turn the invisible, constantly changing world of the microbiome into intelligence we can act on. Powered by the world’s largest microbiome database, it helps us cut through complexity and uncover the insights and opportunities that matter most, informing smarter nutrition and farm management decisions. Biostrong™ helps us put that understanding into practice. It gives us targeted micronutrition solutions that build on what we know about nutrition, the bird’s microbiome and poultry production to support resilience and performance, helping deliver real results.
These examples highlight why understanding the biology matters. We’re not looking only at an individual input or a single point in time. We’re looking at the bigger picture and using that understanding to apply micronutrition with greater precision.
Q : What’s the one thing you’d like people to take away about micronutrition?
Christos: Micro in inclusion. Macro in impact.
Small, precisely applied nutritional interventions can have a meaningful impact on animal health, performance and sustainability, as long as they’re backed by science and designed to work with the animal’s biology.
From more products to more purpose
Christos’ perspective gets to the heart of a different way of thinking about micronutrition.
It isn’t about adding more. It’s about understanding more — the nutrients, the biology, the species and the conditions in which they interact — so micronutrition can be applied with greater purpose.
At Cargill Micronutrition & Health Solutions, that means moving from more products to more purpose.
Proven animal performance. With purpose.