Product Manager Swine

De Heus South Africa is seeking a dynamic, technically skilled, and solution-oriented Swine Product Manager to lead our product and nutritional strategy within the Swine business unit. This position will play a pivotal role in feed and product development, formulation, and providing technical on-farm support to our internal teams and customers.

Responsible for the physical and nutritional pig product specifications and to attend to general nutritional items with regards to these species. Act as a principle intermediate between the De Heus South African nutritional and technical organization and the Formulations Department and the International Product Manager of De Heus Animal Nutrition in The Netherlands.

KEY PERFORMANCE AREAS

Key Resposibilities

• Develop and manage the swine feed portfolio (including pre-starters, starters, growers, finishers, and sow diets).
• Lead new product development in collaboration with nutrition, procurement, and marketing teams.
• Formulate and optimize rations and premixes in line with nutritional requirements, raw material availability, and performance goals.
• Support the sales and technical teams with on-farm problem-solving and complaint resolution.
• Analyse production and performance data to identify opportunities for improvement and differentiation.
• Conduct competitor benchmarking and market intelligence gathering.
• Deliver technical training to internal sales teams and external customers.
• Collaborate with R&D teams locally and globally for innovation and best practices.

Manage the physical and nutritional specifications of pig products by:

• Monitoring and documenting feed production in line with legislation.
• Product registrations with the Department of Agriculture.
• Define standards for physical quality and feed structure for each feed mill and also monitoring these quality standards by visiting mills regularly.
• Manage the requests for Standard Special Products (SSP's) for pigs. Approve these for production when required.
• Investigate and analyze customer complaints in accordance with the Customer Action Requests (CAR) and Non-Conformance Requests (NCR) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's). Both for the market and production.
• Management of the pig feed ranges and individual products:
• Nutritional specifications of the standard De Heus feed ranges
• Nutritional specifications of custom diets, concentrates and macro packs.
• Review Global R&D reports for application in local feed ranges.
• Set up and manage local product trials if required.
• Frequent Product Manager meetings with the International Product Manager and the Formulations Department.
• Writing of technical articles for local and international company newsletters.
• Networking with:
  • Breeding companies
  • Veterinarians and animal health organisations
  • Suppliers of feed additives and enzymes
  • Customers, AFMA Technical Committee, AFMA Regulatory Committee
  • Attending technical meetings and conferences where relevant.
• Manage raw material bounds to help realize margin budget.
• Create and maintain technical database (Library).
• Coordinate visits from International Pig Product Manager.

Purchase

Supporting and assisting Purchasing Department with:

• Decisions on specialised raw materials such as premixes, animal by-products, oils and grains for nutritional quality, physical quality, stability, and trustworthiness of supplier when required.
• In the quality audits of suppliers when required.

Provide nutritional support to the sales team:-

• By giving commercial answers and information to sales staff and customers.
• Give training to sales staff as required.
• Technical legal compliance support for advertising materials such as leaflets, brochures and bags.
• Assist with trouble shooting on farms when required.
• Formulate complete diets, concentrates and macro packs for special markets. Sell and support these products.
• Collect and analyze nutritional information and products on competitors.
• Monitor and analyze data on the technical and economic performance of our products and those of competitors in the field.
• Maintain Pig Sector plans in coordination with Sales and the International Product Manager

Production

Assist Production by:

• Investigate, when required, production matters concerning:
  product variations in raw materials, nutrients, physical quality, ext.
• Maintain the contamination protocols in conjunction with the Quality Manager. This will include updated contamination tables and production sequencing.
• Recoding of damaged or returned product into redress, sweepings or into another product code.

Marketing

Assist Marketing by:

• Planning with the Sales Team to write 2 articles each during the year on agreed topics.
• Providing information required to update the Website – product profiles and articles.
• Providing information for social media posts.

Knowledge, Qualifications & Experience

• BSc Agric / BSc Animal Science (Minimum) in animal husbandry
• MSc in Animal Nutrition (Advantageous)
• Possession of a valid code 08/EB drivers license
• Registered as an Animal Nutritionist (SANASP, Pri.Sci.Nat)
• 5 Years' experience in a Swine Nutrition & Feed formulation
• Strong Understanding of the South African feed market, including raw materials dynamic
• Hands on on-farm experience in managing swine health, performance and growth challenges
• Practical experience qwith formulation software (eg. format, Bestmix, Brill)
• Ability to troubleshoot and reso;ve technical complaints related to nutrition, feed quality and on-farm performance.

Skills

• Problem solving and decision making skills
• Communication and influencing skills
• Relationship building and team leadership skills
• Quality Awareness
• Negotiation and Selling skills

Behaviours

• Positive, pro-active, results-driven attitude
• Highly ethical and principle-driven
• Committed, dedicated, motivated
• Self-starter and follow-though
• Energy, drive, courage and tenacity
• Required to work with minimum supervision

Adverse Working Conditions

• Travel and extended work hours from time to time

Applicants must submit a comprehensive CV, with work-related references to

Closing date: 25 July 2025

Please note that only applicants who meet the stipulated minimum requirements will be considered. If you have not been contacted within 2 weeks of the closing date, kindly consider your application unsuccessful. De Heus reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised.