We are making some changes for the better at Benchmark
The last two years have seen the Benchmark Feed range enthusiastically embraced by the equestrian community throughout Australia.
Introducing a new feed concept and brand can be a little scary, no more so than in the equine market where horse owners are passionate about their charges' health, welfare, and performance and who look at new products with a healthy degree of suspicion. As horse owners, we understand this, and while we had a strong belief that our feeds would perform as we expected, it was gratifying and humbling to witness the outpouring of support our products have received from the equestrian community.
So, thank you to everyone who has shared their stories and endorsed our products to your friends and on our social platforms, and in DMs. One of the great things about our community is the willingness of people to share experiences and information.
The success of our mash feeds Perfect Mash, Super Fibre Mash, and more recently Balancer Mash has led to a rapid increase in demand, positively increasing pressure on our production and distribution partners. A flow on from this is that we are being approached almost daily by feed retailers who want to become Benchmark stockists. These requests are primarily due to the Benchmark community’s recommendations, and we are grateful and appreciative of their support.
Our steam extruded feeds, Cool AZ, Invest and Golden Oldies are going from strength to strength.
With horse owners becoming more aware of high starch levels in some well-established extruded feeds due to the heavy use of grains and mill run. Our use of highly fermentable super fibres in these feeds has effectively changed the way energy is delivered and has resulted in a lower starch extruded complete feed range that stands apart from the rest. Many are using the Perfect Partners combo, combining their choice of extruded feed with a base of Super Fibre Mash and achieving excellent results.
Currently, our extruded feeds and our muesli feed Achieve - Sport, contain soy hulls as the sole source of fermentable fibre and soybean and canola meals as our protein sources. In conjunction with our nutrition and manufacturing teams, we are reformulating these feeds to eliminate the use of soybean meal, replacing this ingredient in the rations with lupin meal. While soy hulls will remain our primary source of fermentable fibre, we will also introduce lupin hulls into these formulations.
As the new formulations come through over the next few months, we will add the word LUPIN with the Best Before Date printed on the front of the bag.
There will be alterations to the ingredients list and minor changes to the nutritional analysis published on our website and downloadable datasheets.
We will update our bags over time, but in the meantime, please refer to our website for current product information.
Please note that Perfect Mash and Super Fibre Mash are unchanged: the Balancer Mash has been enhanced with lupin meal but still contains soybean meal, canola meal and soy hulls.
Lupins are a great source of protein and nutrients, are highly palatable, and are grown in many regions of Australia.
Lupin hull is classified as a SUPER FIBRE and functions in much the same way as soy hulls in a ration, providing highly fermentable fibre that stimulates the production of volatile fatty acids, a horse’s natural fat-based energy supply.
There are some very good reasons for this move, not the least being expanding our use of locally grown crops.
KEY POINTS
- Benchmark Perfect Mash®, Benchmark Super Fibre Mash® - formulations unchanged.
- Benchmark Balancer Mash® - lupin meal added to the current formulation.
- Benchmark Cool AZ®, Benchmark Invest®, Benchmark Golden Oldies®, Benchmark Achieve®-Sport - soybean meal free, indicated by the word LUPIN printed with the Best Before Date on the bag.
The website will provide detailed, up-to-date information on ingredients and nutrient analysis for each product.
Feeding guides remain the same. These changes will be introduced from February 2022.