During VICTAM Asia 2026, co-located with Animal Health and Nutrition Asia in Bangkok, Feed Strategy spoke with exhibitors about the trends and challenges shaping the region's feed sector. In this interview, Anre Heuer, area sales manager for Asia at Amandus Kahl, discusses how rising raw material and energy costs are pushing feed mills to rethink plant-wide process design, why the company's expander conditioning technology is seeing strong demand, and how intuitive automation software and regional support help operators in markets where technical resources vary.
Interview with Anre Heuer, area manager - Asia, Amandus Kahl GmbH & Co.
Jackie Roembke: Hi, everyone. Jackie Roembke here, reporting from VICTAM Asia, also co-located with Animal Health and Nutrition Asia. So today, we are going to share some of the conversations that we had with exhibitors here at the exhibition in Bangkok, Thailand.
Anre Heuer, area manager, Amandus Kahl GmbH & Co.: Hi, my name is Anre Heuer. I'm working for Amandus Kahl as an area sales manager here in the Asia region. I've been with Kahl now for about 11 years. And again, here we are at the VICTAM show talking to our customers, clients and, of course, also potential customers — having a great time here and a lot of projects coming up, hopefully.
Roembke: How are you tailoring your solutions for the range of operations common in Southeast Asia, from large integrated producers down to smaller, independent mills?
Heuer: Basically, we work with complete integrators but, of course, also smaller feed mills. We are always trying to focus on the process and see what requirements the customer has and what the feed actually requires for the animals. We're focusing on animal health and welfare and trying to tailor our solutions for that, provide feasible solutions, and do this in the design phase together with the customer to get a good final process. Of course, there are differences in the local raw materials available, or prices, so there are some differences in the process parameters. But overall, especially nowadays, cost is always one of the main factors that is pushing, especially when it comes to raw materials, but also energy. And this is the part where we try to give our technology, our know-how, to provide the best solutions and focus on the things that we can improve together with our partners.
Roembke: Aquafeed is a dominant and growing sector across the region. How has demand from shrimp, tilapia and other locally important species influenced your product development?
Heuer: I think we have been quite active in aquafeed for 30 years already, and we are continuing today. When it comes to aquafeed, there are a lot of different challenges. When it comes to shrimp feed, obviously, grinding and the fine particles are some of the challenges we face, and also the feed quality — that you have good pellet stability. And when we look at other niche markets, or not niche, but special feeds — especially when it comes to very big particles, big pellets — then we have to also consider good pellet quality and a very gentle process once we have the pellets, to reduce fines and to allow a better margin at the end at the fish farm as well.
Roembke: Energy efficiency is a major purchasing driver right now. What kind of real-world performance gains are your Southeast Asian customers seeing, and what does a typical ROI timeline look like?
Heuer: Again, this widely varies depending on the equipment, on the feed, of course, and also on the other industries. Nowadays, one thing that one can consider is to improve the mechanical design of the machines to go for higher efficiency. You also have better drive motors today that are more efficient compared to the past. But also when you look at the process again, there are things that you can reconsider. Is it necessary to do all the grinding? Can you maybe have some bypass in the line, so that you're not only looking at the single equipment, but really having a look at the overall plant concept and plant processes, and how you can adapt the machinery to be more efficient, to be more energy efficient and to overall have a better solution? This also comes down to conditioning techniques. For example, we have our expander implemented in a lot of feed mills nowadays and see a great demand for that, because it allows a better throughput of the whole capacity of the plant, and this obviously brings benefits in the overall production cost. And roughly speaking, of course, return on investment always depends on the margin and on the cost of the project. But roughly, I would say you can see them coming in within two to four years. Again, depending on the industries — in other places, maybe it can also be faster. But this is always, of course, a case-by-case thing.
Roembke: Automation is changing what feed mill operators need to know and do. How are you approaching that transition with customers in markets where skilled technician availability varies widely?
Heuer: Obviously, automation has always been there, and depending on the region, it can vary significantly. And of course, it usually also comes with the cost in the (capital expenditure). But what we focus on is having clear visualization software that is intuitive to work with and simple to understand, without the operators having to know every process detail. The visualization should guide the operators and give clear hints if they need to adjust something. And obviously, not only the software itself is important, but our support and training is also very crucial for that, and we have our regional office in Malaysia supporting that. Nowadays, remote access is also no problem, so when there are questions or issues coming up, it's just one call, and the regional office or the partners locally in the market can easily provide support to the customers.
Roembke: Looking at the next 12 months, what's the biggest shift you expect in demand from Southeast Asian feed manufacturers, and are you already responding to it?
Heuer: I think actually there will not be a new shift. I think the shift is already taking place, and again, it's looking at energy cost, it's looking at production efficiency, and sourcing locally available raw materials without having a disadvantage in the feed quality, in the pellet quality. And I think this is where the local partners or local companies and feed millers will keep on looking for solutions that can counter those challenges.