Jan's delivery of 588 JSR great grandparent and grandparent gilts took place in April 2007, enabling him to create a nucleus and multiplication herd. It will produce Genepacker 105 parent gilts.

In spite of the inflated prices for building materials, he has no regrets with his choice to restock.

Jan confirms: "It has been a challenging undertaking but I was convinced that restocking with JSR breeding stock was the right move. The real value of their support, and the superiority of their genetics, is now becoming apparent. The pigs supplied from the UK have excellent conformation, good appetites and they are growing well. They are also very docile and easy to handle."

Paul Anderson, JSR's European Sales Director agrees. "We are delighted at the progress Jan has made. The work we did initially on developing the contract has meant that the business has made a tremendous start. The rewards are within reach for Jan and I know he is looking forward to being able to offer other Polish producers the benefit of gilts from such a high health status herd."

This contract is just one of many JSR has recently fulfilled in Central and Eastern European. The company has several highly lucrative contracts under negotiation and being able to fulfil some of these with Jan's locally bred stock offers many benefits in terms of location and that the animals have adapted to their environment.

Pleased with progress so far, Jan has set his sights on further improvements. Having mated 250 females, using semen collected on his own farm and targeted to give three inseminations per animal, he feels the resulting conception rates of more than 97 per cent are just one of the major benefits of restocking with prolific, high health status pigs.

He says that adopting better operator techniques and protocols, investing in advanced AI laboratory equipment and improving hygiene by using disposable equipment, will be able to maintain this high level of reproduction.

Having recently employed a young and ambitious, Farm Manager - Ryszard Wojtasik - Jan feels that his business is set to prosper. He concludes: "I feel that my business is now on the right lines for growth. I have the energy and enthusiasm of Ryszard, my new Farm Manager, and the on-going support of JSR. I can now look forward to expanding production on the basis of a healthy, high genetic status herd."