The founding of Prodavi, Switzerland, goes back to 1988, and since 1996 the company ongoingly works with H&N parent stock. [register]
While producing sustainably under the seal of Swiss Quality in a small, very developed market, the company is dedicated to transparency, listing all partners, customers and network stakeholders of the production chain on their website.
Swissdom
Andreas Suter, deputy CEO and head of hatchery and logistics at Prodavi, and his team around CEO André Hodel leave nothing to chance.
When we started to consider developing our company from breeding, and integrating the hatching part of business, our greater goal was to establish a flawless production process that always delivers on the Swiss seal of quality” he explains.
Only eggs of layers whose parents have already been imported as a day old chick – they are hatched in a ps-hatchery from H&N.
Swiss Made is synonymously used to quality, and Swiss Made products enjoy highest reputation worldwide, Prodavi makes no difference of that.
It doesn’t take magic, but it does take unwavering dedication to detail and a passion for precision to make things work like Prodavi.
Planning Precision Passionately
The Swiss based company started to work with H&N some 25 years ago. Before, from their founding in 1988 until the early 1990’s, Prodavi started off as producer.
The decision to elevate the business also to hatching and rearing was in the founders’ mind already then, Suter recalls.“But we didn’t know where to get good chickens from.”
Because it would take birds fit to meet the high “egg-xpectations”, and likewise reliable support for fast and sustainable solutions whenever needed.
Good genetics is one thing you cannot alter. What you can alter, model and optimize is the management of each production step from importing and rearing parent stock, hatching and rearing layers and onwards to your customers and linked into their production.
A supply chain approach that dovetails supply partners and their economic goals like a Swiss clockwork. Data mining, data exchange, forecasting and on-demand- delivery is a key
requirement or the supply chain can break apart again.
Under Qualities’ Regency
Doing business in developed markets is different than in developing countries, but it’s not at all easier. Quite the opposite is true: Expectations are very high.
And at the start we were faced with a small market in a small country that seemed already oversaturated with some ten other hatcheries present in Switzerland in the early
1990’s, recalls Andreas Suter.
“So we first sat down together and discussed our thoughts, and how we could master our decision to make it better than all others with H&N
in this market, how to avoid common challenges and set ourselves apart successfully. And what it would take
to develop our business solidly on such premises”.
All chicks produced in Switzerland must be reported to the central independent organization Aviforum, therefore also market shares are always very accurate:
Prodavi + Bibro
In 2019 Prodavi produced 53,8 percent of all layer hen chicks in Switzerland, not factoring in 57,2 percent produced by organic sister company Bibro.
Together Prodavi and Bibro supplied 54,5 percent of all layer chicks to the Swiss Market 2019.
Salmonella and Marek’s Disease were huge issues back then throughout the 90’s.
Most hatcheries had big problems. And we knew we could only avoid running into these as well by doing every production step ourselves, starting with hatching our own birds. Only then we’d be able to consequently apply the strictest, most meticulous quality monitoring possible to each step, in fact, our very own.
The final decision to give it a go was made in 1993, and the search for partners for parent stock began.
The Swiss market consolidated ever since to now only two big conventional hatcheries across the entire country today. Prodavi is one of them.
Investigations Before Taking Investments
It wasn’t easy to find out where to get good parent birds, recalls Andreas Suter. “And once we found out, it wasn’t easy to negotiate the partnership that now exists since 1996.” H&N was still in the United States back then.
But we were determined to base our future on genetics that would perform well. And we were lucky to also be able and count on the help of one of our veterinarians Dr. Lifschitz, one of the best and most experienced poultry vets in Switzerland, who worked for us and became a real door-opener, he connected us to the right people at H&N.
It took some time to build the business in the way the Prodavi team wanted.
Being able to work independently and taking our own decision really mattered to us. We did not want to get too attached to a monopolist. We wanted to preserve our freedom to move things the way we wanted and into a truly new direction that also allowed designing our own production monitoring and logistics.
It was pioneer work, but it was excellently planned and thought through, and that now keeps paying off.
Good Bye to Spread Sheets
Thinking things through from start to end implied monitoring.
Working the entire supply chain well demands to be able and see into each step ideally in real-time, explains Suter.
The need to invest not only into production related machinery but also into digital development was set from the start.To allow for flawless logistics and to-the-point delivery and on-demand-dispatch
to his customers, Andreas Suter initiated and rolled- out a computer program
of his own in collaboration with an IT-company.
Right at or very shortly after every customer visit our field specialists file the data into our own detection system.
The system works with a traffic-light visual: green signals everything on track and running smoothly, orange means there’s an issue which is already in treatment, and red would signal an alert requiring immediate attention.
However, thanks to our system, red is seen only very scarcely. It’s thanks to our system that enables every other colleague to assess problems and align forces where needed in real-time, says Suter.
Not enough, he subsequently integrates even more production data, lighting, feed intake etc. to allow for even more automation and still faster reaction time.
Spread sheets are still used as hatchery ledger and we kept them also as a back-up as long as our software solution was still in test mode. But manual controlling always requires time. Besides one colleague may have just finalized his or her work and with the next entry the sheet needs to be adjusted yet again.
Horizontal Quality Management by applying rigorous Hygiene- and Surveillance Concepts on all Levels
Rearing of Parent Animals
Quarantined Rearing of imported day-old-chick Parent Stock under surveillance concept for Parent Stock rearing
Parent Stock Companies for Hatching Egg Production
Parent Stock Laying under surveillance concept for breeding egg production
PRODAVI Hatchery, Buttisholz CH
Isolated Premise for chick production, process and surveillance according to PRODAVI Quality Control
Rearing of layer hen chicks
Decentralized rearing companies, that have been selected according to PRODAVI Quality Control
Egg Producer keeping layer hens for consumable eggs
Farm Production producing consumable eggs, controlled by PRODAVI layer hen concept and PRODAVI Quality Control
Vertical Quality Management by flawless controlling of all preliminary levels / Egg processessing and egg sales
Dedicated data evaluation may sound dreadful, but it really can put you ahead by allowing tracing and forecasting. Andreas Suter and his team literally know each step of each chick from importing parent stock onwards.
Prodavi runs their own fleet of delivery trucks and logistics processes, too.
We simply don’t compromise our premium product. We are in the lucky situation to have a well-developed infrastructure and a very well-informed demanding market, which does not mean that such a market is easy to be satisfied, it’s as difficult as any, because we want to meet and exceed our customers high expectations.
So, we simply do our best to keep offering the best.
We thank André Hodel and Andreas Suter for the interview.
André Hodel CEO & Sales Manager at Prodavi &
Andreas Suter CEO & Head of Hatchery and Logistics at Prodavi
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