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Bag price is the worst way to compare minerals
Comparing supplements by the price of the packaging is comparing what matters least. The sum that decides is not on the invoice: it is at the trough.
By Francisco Marcos Gomes FeitosaMagnata do SalFounder of VERMEFÓS. Over 30 years in animal nutrition, from the farm supply counter to the trough.
The sum everyone does first
At the counter, the first question is almost always the price of the bag. It is a fair question: it is the one number that turns up without effort, printed on the invoice, the same for everybody and easy to compare. The trouble is that it is also the number that tells you least about what will reach the animal. Everybody knows how to price a bag. Almost nobody prices nutrition.
A bag is a unit of packaging, not a unit of nutrition. The herd does not receive bags: it receives an amount of nutrient per day, multiplied by the days of the year. Two products stacked side by side, at similar prices, can deliver very different things across a whole season, because they differ in what they hold per kilo and in how much the animal eats per day.
Price per bag, cost per head
The comparison that counts has three numbers, and the price of the packaging on its own is none of them: how much the animal eats per day, how much the product delivers in that amount, and what that costs per head per day. Once the sum is done, the price ranking changes often. Sometimes it reverses completely, and the product that looked dear on the pallet turns out cheap at the trough.
I write this knowing I am working against part of my own trade, and against myself along with it. The day the cattleman starts comparing cost per head per day, a lot of sales talk stops working. Mine too, if I cannot stand behind that sum. I prefer it that way: a man who sells well need only fear the buyer who does not do the arithmetic.
What the cheap bag usually charges later
There is no magic in minerals. Raw material has a price, and it is much the same price for everyone who manufactures. When a bag comes in well below the rest, something has given way: less of what costs, more of what fills. A carrier is part of any formula and is no defect; what it cannot be is sold at the price of what it is not.
And there is a cost that appears on no invoice: the lost year. The heifer that falls behind, the cow slow to come back into calf, the steer that arrives lighter at the end of the dry season. That expense shows up on no line of the spreadsheet, but it is paid all the same, and it tends to be many times larger than the difference saved on the bag.
Comparing is work, and that is why it works
Comparing properly takes fifteen minutes, two labels and a calculator. Guaranteed levels, expected intake, price. It is dull work with no drama in it, and it is the only thing that protects the buyer from the seller's talk, mine included. Against a sum already done, no salesman's argument holds.
Whoever does that sum stops being a buyer of bags and becomes a buyer of nutrition. They are two different relationships, and the second is a great deal harder to fool. Be wary of the manufacturer who would rather you did not do it.
Informational content. It does not replace guidance from a responsável técnico for your herd.
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