Sciwag,

I am not privy to all of the specific customers nor every trial being conducted. Some of that information is carefully guarded for good reasons. However, I can say with a degree of certainty that some of the trials "about to begin" and "in progress" are trials that were not even on the radar in May 2007. I would also say that any trials completed in Spring or Summer of last year would not qualify as "recently completed."

My understanding is that it is not uncommon for a company to do testing and use product in a way similar to that of Maple Leaf Farms. Maple leaf tested the product with their breeding stock and found that they liked the results. They adopted the product in the breeding stock at one location. The results with the breeding stock at that location confirmed the original test results, so they adopted it in all their breeding programs at multiple locations. Now they are testing it with their production birds. Similar patterns seem to be common, with trials beginning and ending, and sometimes resulting in product sales, and sometimes resulting in further tests.

Trials can take as little as 6 weeks for broilers (with 2 weeks more to assemble the data), or as long as six months for cows.

I hope this helps.

-zties