Suffolk-based pig equipment company, Quality Equipment, has just notched up over £250,000 worth of high-tech exports to Japan.

In the last two years, more than 200 automatic feeders for young pigs have been delivered. The last consignment followed a visit by Glyn Baker and Michael Mattmuller, of Quality Equipment, to their Japanese distributor, Global Pig Farms.

Global Pig Farms had earlier purchased the Transition feeders and found they were so successful they started supplying them to other pig farmers.

The award-winning feeders were developed by Quality Equipment’s own R & D department at their Woolpit manufacturing base. They have an intelligent control mechanism which helps newly-weaning young piglets make the transition from mother’s milk to solid feed. Piglets are vulnerable at this stage and the feeders provide a warm gruel on a little-and-often basis, mimicking the sow’s own feeding pattern.

The feeders have since sold all over the world.