Mitavite
Celebrating 27 years.
In the mid 1980s, horse owner, racing enthusiast and businessman Bob Lapointe saw an opportunity to improve the racehorse performance by improving the nutritional value and palatability of the horses' diet. Already heavily involved within the food industry, Lapointe put together a plan to produce specialist equine feeds, building the first Mitavite feed-mill on his own property, Muskoka Farms at Gunderman, close to Wiseman's Ferry in NSW.
At this time Lapointe met Central Coast entrepreneur Sam Rutherford who was already running a small feed milling operation. The pair joined forces and in 1987 the Australian Feed Company was formed. Soon after, Sydney veterinary surgeon Treve Williams joined the company. The three men shared a common goal. They wanted to take the guesswork out of horse feeding by providing trainers and horse owners with a range of horse feeds that were scientifically formulated and in their words “provided everything in the bag”.
They used radical new techniques to formulate complete feeds, including the development of horse-specific amino acid profiles, the analysis of energy pathways and the understanding of the interaction and metabolism of vitamins and minerals through the horse's digestive system.
Feed-mill Manager, Peter Aldrick was appointed in 1987 to oversee production, a position he still holds after over 25 years service. Many of the original, ground-breaking manufacturing processes are still in use at Mitavite today. As the business grew, Dr. Ray Biffin was appointed to further the development of the Mitavite product range. Ray is still closely involved with Mitavite today, providing veterinary and nutritional consultancy services and helping to keep Mitavite at the forefront of equine nutrition.
Although research has resulted in countless new innovations over the decades, many of the original formulations have not been bettered and still form part of each Mitavite feed today. The rapid acceptance of our Mitavite product range was driven by the success our customers were enjoying on the race track, on studs and agistment properties throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the Middle East.
Over the following 10 years, the Mitavite factory, now located on the NSW Central Coast, was expanded to meet the growing demand and a new state-of-the-art computerised feed-mill was installed to ensure that the highest possible quality standards were maintained. At this time a new steam extrusion process was commissioned to enhance the digestibility of grain starches, a process that still plays an integral part in many of our present day feeds.
Sadly Sam Rutherford passed away in 1997 but the passion and enthusiasm that drove Sam Rutherford and his partners to succeed in the 1980's is still very evident today. Our staff take great pride in every bag of Mitavite that leaves the plant and they eagerly follow the success of loyal customers in the pursuits throughout the equine world.
