By Eric Jenks, Special to NEAFA
This month’s NEAFA member highlight is Chemlock Nutrition. “We’re a young company,” said Director of Dairy Science Rick Brown. “Chemlock Nutrition was founded in 2010 by chemists and has customers worldwide. It began by selling cobalt carbonate for industrial applications. By 2014, we also started selling that to livestock premix companies in the US since cobalt is an essential nutrient used in ruminant nutrition.”
Brown has had a lifelong connection with agriculture. “I grew up in Maine, and I joined 4H and the National Holstein Association at a young age,” said Brown. “I received my bachelor’s in animal science from Cornell in 1998 and spent 17 years working with Purdue Agribusiness before joining Chemlock Nutrition. Chemlock was an exciting new opportunity to learn about nutrients I hadn’t previously focused on. It’s a very innovative company. They have high-quality products, an extensive product portfolio, and many new products on the horizon. We’re based in chemistry and focus on better methods of delivering nutrients to livestock. My team focuses on dairy cattle, but we have a monogastric team (poultry and swine), and we’re also working on products for pets and equine.”
While Chemlock’s direct customers are distributors and pre-mixers, my team also works directly with nutritionists. “We sell to the people that sell to the feed mills,” said Brown. “But we work directly with nutritionists to help on the application side. Our team works with consultants and dairy farmers across the country. That work can be a lot of fun because it’s rewarding when you can help people. It’s a great challenge to bring value to and to help people advance and improve the profitability of their farm.”
Chemlock Nutrition is a newer member of NEAFA as well. “Last year was our first year with NEAFA,” said Brown. “I’ve been aware of NEAFA for a long time through my prior involvement with Purdue. The exposure to other members and the activities that they put on were what made us join. We like that NEAFA is educating and legislatively supporting the dairy industry. We focus on the education side, but we’re pleased with NEAFA's efforts to support the dairy industry in the Northeast from a lobbying side as well. Living and working in the Northeast, I see our dairy farms progressing positively in several ways. Technologically and sustainably, these exciting points dramatically grow along with the expansion and modernization of dairy processing. They’re all things that will help northeastern farms remain competitive going into the future and supply the East Coast with nutritious dairy products.”
For more information on Chemlock Nutrition, visit www.chemlocknutrition.com