Behind The Scenes Of A Nutrition Advisor

Iona Robinson

Saracen Horse Feeds has a team of nutrition advisors, who are passionate about delivering nutritional advice that will help to support the health, wellbeing, and performance of all horses. The nutrition advisor has a range of roles, from providing tailored feeding advice, to assisting with product development.

The first part of a Saracen nutrition advisor’s day consists of checking all Saracen social media platforms. In addition to responding to direct messages, the nutrition advisor is responsible for responding to any nutrition related comments under recent posts.

Alongside this, from 8:30am until 5:00pm, the nutrition advisors are available to answer calls via the nutrition helpline. A range of subjects are addressed through the nutrition helpline, including specific product questions, dietary recommendations, and general nutritional advice. Another way to receive nutritional support is through the Saracen Feed Advice Form. The nutrition advisors utilise information about your horse’s characteristics, current diet, and your what you would like to see from your horse’s new diet, to recommend a suitable ration to meet their nutritional requirements and your goals. It is always helpful to attach a side profile, full body photo of your horse to best inform our feeding recommendations.

As well as providing online feed advice, Saracen offices and mill are lucky to also be situated alongside the Lillico Attlee Country Store. Nutrition advisors are always on hand to support the shop staff if any specific nutrition questions occur.

Partnered with Kentucky Equine Research, Saracen have access to world leading equine nutrition and exercise physiology research. It is vital for nutrition advisors to keep up to date with recent research advances, to ensure the latest developments in nutrition can be applied to our product formulations and feeding recommendations. This partnership also allows Saracen access to Kentucky Equine Research software such as Microsteed. Microsteed allows horse owners to input their horse’s information and current ration, and send the output of this to the nutrition advisors for analysis. Alternatively, in cases where we are concerned about a certain deficiency or would benefit from comparing two rations, Microsteed is an invaluable tool for the nutrition advisor to create rations and ensure they meet all nutritional requirements.

At 9:30am every morning, the nutrition advisors attend a quality control meeting, where a sample of each batch of feed from the day prior is assessed to ensure optimal quality. This routine practise ensures that each feed contains all the ingredients that it should, from pea flakes to banana flavouring. Raw materials are also assessed to ensure they are of expected quality. Any products that are not considered up to standard will not be distributed (although this rarely occurs).

Whilst a large aspect of the nutrition advisor’s role is to provide feeding recommendations, there is also an involvement in product development. Product development meetings are an opportunity for the nutrition team to identify gaps in the market for new products, carry out product comparisons and discuss new ingredients. An activity that can come off the back of a product development meeting is product mock-ups. This involves mixing up a small batch of a new feed recipe to ensure the feed looks appealing, or to improve manufacturing efficiency within the mill.

Another service offered by Saracen is forage analysis. Forage analysis is the only way to truly determine the nutritional quality of your forage, allowing us to understand the contribution that your hay, haylage, or grass is having to your horse’s overall diet. If you decide to have your forage analysed, you will receive a report from our nutritional team with the analysis results along with an explanation of what the results mean. We are also able to use the forage analysis results to prepare a diet plan for your horse, taking into account the results from the analysis so that your horse's diet can be individually tailored to their specific needs.

Finally, a slightly different part of the nutrition advisor’s role is assisting the marketing team with content creation. This can involve recording social media content, providing technical nutrition knowledge, and writing articles, such as the article you are currently reading.

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