Emma Slater, Young Animal Technical Advisor (Pig)

Department: Pig, Poultry, Leisure – Technical team

“I really enjoy the variety within my role, every day is different and there’s always a new challenge.”

The Technical Team

“I initially joined ForFarmers in 2015 as a Formulator, my experience here gave me great insight into the business, not only from a nutritional point of view, but also as a touch point for so many different teams within the business.”

“I then re-joined the pig sales team in May 2020 in my current role as Young Animal Technical Advisor.”

My Role Now

“Like many of us, I’m spending a lot more time in my home office than normal, but when I am able to get out and about I can be found on farm including working on commercial trials we are running, benchmarking, or attending farm reviews and talking about our Nutricare tools.”

My Involvement in VIDA

“VIDA is a big focus area for my role, I support producers in maximising their piglet performance and feeding regimes on farm.”

“As a technical team, we aim to maximise the benefits that our customers receive when they buy our VIDA offering.”

“I lead our trial program for VIDA, supporting on farm whether this may be helping to weigh piglets, or analyse data.”

“I support the communication both internal and external for VIDA, whether this be a recent good news story or a performance update from a recent trial. We want to shout in as many ways and channels as possible of the amazing results which VIDA is achieving.”

“Working closely with account managers to drive the best results for our customers from the VIDA program, I regularly analyse performance data with the team on farm. Providing feedback and insight into the results to further improve performance.”

Keeping the team updated

“I keep the sales team updated with any changes in legislation, recently a large focus of these sessions has been the removal of Zinc which the UK pig industry is preparing the removal of in 2022. In advance of this deadline, I am working on the support package for producers.”

“I sit on the commercial and international steering groups for VIDA providing the technical input. These meetings are such a great way to bring teams from the different countries together to discuss and share knowledge, which I can feedback to the UK teams.”

Team Work

“I enjoy the network that we work within as a group, regularly sharing learnings, and vice versa with colleagues from the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.”