About IDEAL
IDEAL Animal Nutrition was started in 2014 by owner, Jeff Knott, Ph.D. IDEAL was founded on integrity, service, science, and innovation to advance the performance and efficiency of the global production animal industry. Our team strives to provide you with cutting-edge swine nutrition and research capabilities.
MEET OUR TEAM
Jeff Knott, Ph.D. - Founder & Owner
Over 20 years of industry experience and is a specialist in providing technical nutritional support to swine producers around the world. He has spent 10 years at a national swine nutrition company before starting IDEAL. Jeff has a B.S. in Animal Science from NDSU. He also received a M.S. and Ph.D. from the U of M in Animal Science (Swine Nutrition).
He is a solutions based, big picture thinker that can communicate the details. Jeff is very good at implementing technical nutrition and technologies into practical field application.
Simon Kern, M.S. - Swine Nutritionist
Over 10 years of industry experience and specializes in technical nutrition and production support to producers. He has 5 years of experience from a regional nutrition company prior to joining IDEAL in 2018. Simon has a B.S. and M.S. in Animal Science from SDSU.
After completing his formal education, Simon spent five years with a regional nutrition company where he served in multiple roles from feed formulation and technical service to product and customer solutions development. He joined Ideal Animal Nutrition in the Fall of 2018 in order to further pursue his passion of providing swine producers with practical, slat-level solutions to the everyday production challenges they face as a part of the ever-changing global swine industry.
Craig Maloney, M.S. - Swine Nutritionist
Over 25 years of experience in the swine industry, with a background in production nutrition and research, technical operations support within large integrated systems, and strategic leadership across technical, operational, and business functions in an independent, family-owned pork system. He earned a B.S. in Animal Science from Oklahoma State University and an M.S. in Swine Nutrition from Kansas State University.
Clayton Chastain, M.S. - Swine Technical Research Nutritionist
Specialist in swine nutrition and research with nearly a decade of experience in applied swine research and production. He holds a B.S. in Animal Sciences and M.S. in Swine Nutrition from Purdue University. Drawing on his background in designing and managing large-scale research trials, he brings a data-driven approach to evaluating feeding strategies, ingredient utilization, and overall production efficiency.