More animal protein will be needed by 2025, due to population growth and rising middle class, especially in emerging markets. Income growth; urbanization; changes in lifestyles and food preferences in addition to continuing population growth could double the demand for meat in the developing world up to 2025. The need to improve competitiveness and production efficiency is becoming increasingly significant, for both domestic markets and international market positioning in particular. Benchmarking performance is increasingly important in this respect, as is the need to remove unnecessary costs in the supply chain. The costs of protein, and diet formulation, for livestock production in relation to performance is a key issue in this regard. Least cost programming to determine the value of each protein source will remain critical.