Cheaper Equipment for Ingredients and Products – Where’s the Nutrition Support?
When making the decision to purchase a capital asset, such as a building or an expensive piece of equipment that will be used for many years, it’s important to do your research and make strategic decisions. One of the most important things you must take into consideration is cost. Especially for start-ups, financing is limited and can be difficult to acquire, making it tempting to buy cheap equipment. However, the decision to purchase low-cost equipment could prove disastrous in the long run.
In economic terms, price is defined as an agreed upon sum of money that one party pays to another party in exchange for a good or service. Notice that the price of something has nothing to do with the quality of the good or service you are buying.
It has been said that buying equipment is like a marriage because you are making a long-term commitment. It’s also like marriage in the sense that the company that sold you equipment should support you for the (hopefully long) duration of your partnership. With this in mind, does it make sense to buy only, or even primarily, based on price? Doesn’t it make sense to consider durability, ease of operation, and equipment support for the long term? If you’re setting up equipment lines to make feed or food ingredients or complete products, who will assist you with nutrition support after the sale?
At Insta-Pro Intl, I take pride in being able to help with the last part in particular. Part of my job as an Applied Nutrition Technologist is to help our existing customers produce quality, consistent, and safe food and feed ingredients for their customers. As I’ve discussed here on the blog, the nutrients in feed and food ingredients are a major part of performance, health, and wellness of every animal and person on Earth.
Therefore, a company selling cheap equipment for the production of feed or food ingredients and products without nutrition support is like being in a bad marriage – no support over the long haul.
Make sure to ask equipment manufacturers about feeding studies with ingredients or products developed from their equipment. Are there any university experiments? Are any of them published in peer-reviewed journals? Is there any indication that they’ve fed anything and tracked some sort of performance metric? If not, maybe it’s time to reconsider your options. At Insta-Pro International, we take care of you because when our customers perform at their best, we do, too. If you’d like to learn more about how we work to support our customers, check out our services page.
