Much like athletes require a specially curated diet to give them the best chance of success, competitive horses need additional dietary support to excel in their field.
Dunstan Nutrition is a boutique manufacturer of equine nutrition diets and is New Zealand’s only totally dedicated supplier of horse nutrition products.
“Dunstan Nutrition products helps turn horses from a grazing herbivore into an equine athlete, enabling horses to grow and perform at the top end of their potential,” says Martin Blampied, Dunstan Nutrition’s Managing Director.
Dunstan supplies nutritional equine products to New Zealand’s thoroughbred breeding and racing industry and New Zealand's equestrian industry which encompasses all disciplines such as dressage, showjumping, eventing, endurance and pony club.
Dunstan has a close relationship with many of New Zealand’s premium thoroughbred breeding studs, working with stud masters and breeders to create tailored dietary blends and customised nutrition plans that suit the location and pasture type of the property to ensure optimal equine nutrition and performance.
“Each sector of the New Zealand equine industry has different dynamics and different needs depending on the horse’s age and activity. We place a high emphasis on customer service and responsiveness,” says Blampied.
Dunstan’s nutritional equine products are made from a range of high-quality ingredients, including New Zealand sourced cereals such as oats, barley and maize which are processed to make them optimally digestible for horses.
With high-energy race horses eating up to seven kilograms of Dunstan products a day, demand for the products is high and Dunstan has been growing year on year, with the business now employing 35 staff.
The nearly 40-year-old business is staunchly ‘New Zealand owned and made’, using only New Zealand grown grains which are processed at Dunstan’s two Waikato based plants.
In recent years sustainability has become more of a focus, so when Dunstan’s key management team learnt about KPMG’s Sustainability Discovery workshop, they jumped at the opportunity to get involved.
The training was partially funded by the Regional Business Partner programme.
“The discovery workshop went really well and we are now committed to working towards a fully-fledged Sustainability Business Plan. We now have a sustainability page on our website and are, in fact, a fair way advanced in terms of contributing to the circular economy than we thought,” says Blampied.
Prior to the training, Dunstan had already started working on a number of sustainability initiatives.
For large clients based in the Waikato and Auckland regions, Dunstan developed a grain keg feed system to supply its products in large reusable ‘kegs’ rather than polypropylene bags. Since inception of the grain keg delivery system, close to two million polypropylene bags and 160 tonnes of polypropylene waste have been saved from landfills and the waste stream.
Dunstan is currently working with its packaging suppliers to refine their existing polypropylene feed bags to make them fully recyclable. Once implemented, this will not only improve Dunstan’s contribution to the circular economy but, due to the more efficient construction of the recyclable bags, will reduce the use of polypropylene material in its bags by 8.2 tonnes per year.
Additionally, Dunstan buys renewable energy certificates from Genesis Energy which means that all the electricity they use in their manufacturing plants is sourced from sustainable hydro-generation.
The sustainability business plan involves engaging with clients and stakeholders to understand their sustainability measures and working together to prioritise sustainability.
“Being a sustainable business is becoming more important to our clients and suppliers. We want to make sure that we’re not creating a negative environmental footprint. We have to be accountable for our actions,” he says.
Find out if your business is eligible for Regional Business Partner funding.