The best cattle and sheep farmers in South Africa will again be honoured this year by the animal feed company Voermol Feeds, and nominations are now open.

Kenny Crampton, Voermol Feeds’ national sales manager, says the competition is being run with Landbouweekblad, the National Wool Growers Association, the Red Meat Producers Organisation, FNB, BKB and Zoetis.

Voermol Feeds has called for nominations from farmers and representatives of the sponsors, farmers’ associations and other agricultural organisations. See the accompanying entry form. The closing date for nominations is September 8.

Any leading livestock farmer who enjoys esteem from his fellow farmers can be nominated, after which a team of experienced, independent judges will select three finalists in each division and visit them on their farms before choosing the winners.

In the final assessment, the following are considered: resource utilisation, feed flow planning, pasture management, breeding and selection measures, record-keeping, comparison with other norms, marketing and value addition, herd production, appearance and condition of animals, infrastructure, personnel management and participation in organised agriculture.

The best cattle and sheep farmers will be crowned at a dinner in Bloemfontein on 15 November.

The cattle farmer of the year award has been presented for the past 17 years, while the sheep farmer of the year has been named 16 times.

Kenny says it is important that the winners share their knowledge and experience, so farmers’ days will be held on the winners’ farms. The dates will be announced as soon as possible after the awards dinner.

Click on the links below for the nomination forms.

• Nomination form for cattle
• Nomination form for sheep

Justin de Haas, Procurement Manager of TWK Agri Proprietary Limited, congratulated Voermol on being a supplier that has met or exceeded a very stringent set of performance criteria. 

He thanked Voermol Feeds for showing support and commitment to adding value to the TWK product range/services. He said that maintaining a focus on the details to achieve perfection each day is not an easy task, so much so that only a fraction of TWK’s suppliers earned this superior recognition.

TWK Supplier Awards

Voermol Supplier certificate

Once again Voermol has been rated the leading livestock feed supplier in South Africa.

Voermol received the following awards in the PMR.africa annual national survey of Livestock Feed Suppliers in SA, conducted from June and July 2020:

The respondents rated Livestock Feed Suppliers across a range of 12 attributes, namely: (each attribute/criteria rated on a scale of 1.00 – 5.00; where 1.00 = poor and 5.00 = outstanding)

• Advertising promotions/campaigns
• After-sales service and follow-up
• Conduct adequate research/up-to-date with latest development
• Consistent good quality products
• Customer service/sales service
• Environmental friendly solutions
• Price/cost (value for money)
• Product availability
• Reputation of company (i.e. perception of the company’s brand; integrity; CSI)
• Sustainable development practices
• Technical support
• Wide range of products

Dear valued stakeholder

At Tongaat Hulett, we are taking all the steps necessary to ensure that we support the call this week by President Cyril Ramaphosa and the South African government to institute the measures required tob control the rapid spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

I wanted to give you some insight into how Tongaat is approaching the lockdown. The President indicated that essential services such as food production would continue to operate, and Tongaat falls into this category.

As such, we will still be operating to supply our consumers and consumers with our products. We will continue to work closely with our suppliers to secure essential supplies. Some members of our team will be working from home but every effort is being made to continue to meet the expectations of our clients and delivering on our mandate to contribute towards feeding the country at this time.

The safety and wellbeing of our employees are front and centre in all our considerations. The manner in which we continue our operations will ensure the safety of our employees, their families and the community. We have shared guidelines to all our people on how to keep healthy and critically, to minimise their interactions with others.

These are challenging times, and we as Tongaat are determined to play our part in not only ensuring our people, our communities and broader society have the foodstuffs they need during this period, but also that they are kept safe.

Thank you,
Gavin Hudson
CEO
Tongaat Hulett

The agriculture and food supply sector is one of the essential systems for livelihood. As with many of our clients, our products are essential to the provision of food to millions of people across the country each day. This means that Voermol Feeds falls within the category of businesses that are exempt from the lockdown announced by the South African Government.

We have been carefully monitoring the situation and have already taken numerous steps to safeguard the supply of our services to you, the wellbeing of our employees and beyond.

During this time:

• All our production facilities and deliveries will continue operating normally.
• All staff that can work remotely will do so and can be contacted directly via email or their mobile phones.
• Reception lines will remain in operation.

We ask that any visitors adhere to the strict health and safety measures in place on each site. These measures allow us to continue to provide services and support to our customers. Now, more than ever before, our continued service to you and our country is of the utmost importance, so we will do everything in our power to ensure this.

Should you wish to discuss the matter in further detail or have any questions, please contact your Voermol representative directly on their mobile or via email.

Voermol won one of the Top Supplier Awards for 2018/19 at the OVK Co-op awards function.

In the photo, left to right:

Armandt Horne – OVK Southern regional manager; Louis Fourie – OVK Western regional manager; Raymond Rudman, Voermol sales agent; Hannes Michau – OVK Northern regional manager; Leon de Klerk, Voermol sales manager and Isak Marais – OVK Central regional manager.

Wolf Edmayr, MD of BKB, with his wife, Birgit Edmayr.

Andre Myburgh, MD of TWK, with his wife Cecile Myburgh

Francois Swanepoel, Executive Director: Commercial of VKB, with his wife Marlene Swanepoel

Shelley Cornish, Voermol Feeds

On Thursday, 4 April 2019, we were saddened by the news that Joan Boyes, who we had met just a few months prior, had passed away at the age of 92. In December 2018 Joan and her son Duncan, joined us for tea at the Voermol Executive Office in Maidstone, Kwa Zulu-Natal. Both Joan and her late husband, Peter Boyes, played a pivotal role in the establishment of Voermol Feeds. Joan, the author of two novels since the age of 90, very quickly won our admiration for her energy, astuteness and ‘joie de vivre’. During the visit, Joan and Duncan reminisced about the years when Peter had worked as an engineer for the Tongaat Sugar Company.

‘The Birth of a Bull Calf’
Up until 1958 the removal of molasses was a problem for the Company. The vision was that animal feeds could be manufactured from molasses and bagasse, both by-products of the Tongaat Sugar Mill. In 1958, Peter Boyes, an engineer, and Dr. Geoff Cleasby, an agronomist, were given the task of finding a satisfactory solution to the disposal problem. However, molasses was a difficult-to-handle product and the challenge was how to convert it into an animal feed which could be conveniently fed.

Joan told us that Peter and Geoff began experimenting and she was asked to fetch a sausage machine from a butcher in Tongaat. It is now part of Voermol’s history that in 1958 the first product, based on a combination of molasses and bagasse, was produced using that sausage machine. The mixture was given to a few farmer friends to feed their stock, who ate it readily!

By 1962 the process was sufficiently advanced to allow for the construction of a pilot plant behind the sugar mill bagasse shed. The management of the Tongaat Sugar Company decided to found a new company to produce and market the animal feeds being developed. The incorporation took place at a Board Meeting held on 4 August 1962. Present were Messrs C J Saunders (chairman), A D Hankinson, G A Ellis, J P H Bentley and R B Thompson (secretary), with Peter Boyes and Geoff Cleasby as managers. A new company was formed called “The Moreland Molasses Company”. At the time Mr. Douglas Saunders, chairman of the Tongaat Sugar Company, who had shown a keen personal interest in the fledgling feed company, announced that “Tongaat’s bull calf had been born”. The new company’s name was later changed to “Voermol Products Ltd.”, then to “Tongaat Milling (Pty) Ltd.” and finally to “Voermol Feeds/Voere”.

By the end of January 1962, the first bags of Voermol Meal came off the production line. Peter Boyes, was the first manager of the company, a position he held until September 1979 when he retired as managing director. On 27 April 1990 a contract was signed for the design, manufacture and supply of a new production facility for Voermol Feeds. At the end of January 1991, Voermol Meal, a forerunner of all the present molasses-based feeds, was produced in the new factory.

Voermol Feeds became the first company in Africa and possibly the world, to successfully commercialise a combination of molasses and bagasse. Molasses is not only a good source of energy, with vitamin B and trace minerals, but it is also very palatable and a good binder; thereby reducing dustiness of the feed. With the result, livestock are more likely to get a balanced intake, as they are less likely to feed selectively. Today, Voermol offers a wide range of products that are scientifically formulated to meet the nutritional requirements of ruminants, during various production stages and on all types of grazing.

After the visit to Voermol Feeds, Duncan sent a message thanking us for the hospitality shown ‘to an old lady’ and for ‘making her year complete’ – Joan’s words. Both Joan and Peter Boyes will be remembered for their meaningful contribution to the establishment of Voermol Feeds. We express our heartfelt condolences to the family.