Evonik strengthens its activities in Precision Livestock Farming with acquisition of Belgian Big Data software provider Porphyrio

• Evonik’s Animal Nutrition business expands activities into digital animal farming
• Expansion of analytics & software expertise for managing livestock operations


Evonik Industries completed the acquisition of Porphyrio NV, the Catholic University Leuven spin-off company head-quartered in Herent (Belgium) on November 7, 2018. Porphyrio is a leading player in the space of processing Big Data for livestock production. With this acquisition, Evonik strengthens its activities in Precision Livestock Farming. The parties have agreed not to disclose the sale price.

Porphyrio provides cloud based specialty software to professional poultry producers for processing and analyzing livestock data. Their data-driven solutions enable livestock producers to better manage, predict, and optimize their operations with the aid of Big Data Biostatistics & potential use of “Artificial Intelligence”.

“Big data and self-learning algorithms could help producers to gain a better understanding of the complex events in the poultry farm and these can be linked with concepts for sustainable animal nutrition. In this way, productivity, efficiency, quality, and animal welfare will all benefit from synergies in animal nutrition and livestock farming,” says Dr. Emmanuel Auer, head of Evonik’s Animal Nutrition Business Line.

Evonik will contribute to this at various levels, by providing diagnostic kits to record parameters for the animals’ state of health, software, data analysis and guidance for the animal farming, and also offer data- and knowledge-based recommendations for feed composition and sustainable diets.

Auer firmly believes that, “Current requirements for livestock farming can only be met through adopting holistic solutions. Our broad service portfolio which is in parts already digital today exactly ties into this approach.” For Evonik this means linking data- and knowledge-based services, along with technical services and the availability of a wide portfolio of feed additives, directly with application in livestock farming. “We know the situation and challenges our customers face, we understand the physiology of the animals, and have decades of experience in animal nutrition. Now we’re bringing all that together with the help of state-of-the-art digital technology—tailored to specific customer requirements.”