October Is National Pork Month!

On behalf of celebrating this month, we wanted to say “hello” and introduce you to our growing swine team here at Kalmbach Feeds. Our main goal at Kalmbach Feeds is to provide the most innovative, quality pig feeds and technical services to our dealers and pig owners. We have a great swine nutrition team that cares deeply about your pigs. In fact, we have built state of the art research facilities to allow us to focus on quality innovations for our pigs and yours.

Kalmbach Feeds and Kalmbach Nutritional Services recently opened a new, state-of-the-art grow-finish swine research facility. The facility offers our swine nutrition and research teams the ability to conduct high-quality, commercial production research with high replication. The information generated at this facility helps our swine nutrition team optimize the nutritional services offered to our customers.

Some neat facts about this research facility include:

• 2,400 pig spaces
• 2 barns with 80 pens per barn
• 4 feed lines per barn
• 4 water lines per barn
• Pen scale
• Precision feeding technologies

Now, Meet Our Team!

Dr. Jim Jolliff

Dr. Jolliff is a swine nutritionist with over 11 years’ experience in the nutrition industry. After earning an MS and Ph.D. at The Ohio State University, Jim was employed by a large, international nutrition company. He joined the Kalmbach Feeds swine nutrition team in 2020 and oversees the swine team on staff. Along with his wife and two children, Dr. Jolliff lives near Radnor, Ohio.

Audrey Walter

Audrey grew up about 8 miles from the Kalmbach Feeds cooperate headquarters. She interned with Kalmbach and Kalmbach Swine Management while attending the University of Findlay where she obtained a Bachelor's degree in animal science/science emphasis with minors in chemistry, business administration and marketing. Audrey had the opportunity to intern at other companies while in undergrad that focused on large scale commercial production and more detailed lab-based research. She attended University of Minnesota and obtained a Master of Science emphasis in swine nutrition with a thesis focused on the risk assessment of antibiotic residues in dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) and potential antibiotic resistance within the fuel ethanol industry. After graduate school, Audrey had the opportunity to work for a top 5 hog producer in the United States in several sow units, which provided invaluable experience that helps her service customers in her position today at Kalmbach. She has been a part of the Kalmbach team since December of 2019 as a formulation specialist and works closely with our manufacturing mills, customers, research and Kalmbach Swine Management team. The most fulfilling thing about Audrey’s job is working in collaboration with other departments at Kalmbach to service our customers in the best way possible!

Dr. Kelly Peper

Dr. Kelly Peper is a swine nutritionist at Kalmbach Feeds with 15 years of experience in the swine industry. She earned her Master of Science at Kansas State University and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Peper been a part of the Kalmbach Feeds swine team since December 2022 and currently resides in Northeast Missouri with her husband and 4 kids.

Julie Salyer

Julie Salyer has been a part of the swine nutrition team at Kalmbach Feeds since 2013. Julie is a wife and mom, and she hasn’t met a pig she doesn’t like! Born and raised in Ohio, she received her degree in animal science at The Ohio State University. Julie then went to Kansas State University for her master’s degree in swine nutrition. At Kalmbach, Julie helps with customer and formulation support for our swine team and helps coordinate trials for our research nursery. In our research nursery facility, we feed and personally evaluate ingredients before we decide on the best formulations for not only our own, but our customers’ pigs.

Dr. Tyler Chevalier

Dr. Tyler Chevalier is another important member of the Kalmbach Feeds swine Nutrition team where he primarily focuses on our swine research efforts. Dr. Tyler is a recent graduate of the University of Kentucky where he received his Ph.D. in swine nutrition and management. When he’s not around pigs, Tyler enjoys spending time with his fiancé and their 3 cats (Tom, Ted, and Snowy). He also enjoys traveling, spending time outside in the garden, and watching football.