The Arbor Acres Middle East and Africa (MEA) team welcomed distributors to Dubai for its Arbor Acres Middle East and Africa Association (AAMEA) meeting from 20-24 November 2022
Joining the group were Aviagen executives including Jan Henriksen, CEO, Tom Exley, president of TMEA, Michael Garden, business manager, MENA, Robert Roszkopf, business manager, SSA, alongside the Arbor Acres MEA team, Aviagen genetics and veterinary experts and specialists.
Discussions critical to the region focused on essential commercial and flock management topics for the poultry industry such as security of supply, food security, and strengthening local production through investments within the MEA region.
A number of key presentations were given:
⦁ Aviagen veterinary health director, Colin Adams presented on the Great Britain (GB Enhanced Standard) compartmentalisation programme as an effective strategy to safeguard poultry trade to the region during a notifiable avian disease outbreak in the supplying country.
⦁ Guest speaker, Kate Hartley, co-owner of Polpeo presented on how to handle a crisis with a correct communication plan in place. This presentation also had a key focus on security of supply, related to Avian Influenza in particular.
⦁ Rupert Claxton, senior strategy consultant for GIRA, gave attendees an update on the global and local poultry market trends post COVID-19 pandemic.
⦁ Bill Levell, owner of WLM Marketing Management and Training, ran a compartmentalisation and regionalisation workshop that outlined how to prepare a document with the local Ministry showcasing the key selling messages of compartmentalisation in order to assist the importing country on how to amend its local import certificate with the appropriate wording. This will assist the local Ministry in working together with DEFRA and the USDA in order to accept the Aviagen Compartment Scheme to ensure security of supply into the TMEA region.
Compartmentalisation and regionalisation require major focus from Arbor Acres distributors as they play a crucial role in lobbying with their local governments, to accept and implement compartmentalisation from approved compartments in the UK and the US, in order to ensure security of supply to the region in the event of a notifiable disease outbreak in the exporting country.
“Thank you to the different guest speakers for their respective presentations which were very informative, encouraging and highlight the strength of the Arbor Acres brand, which supports the theme of the meeting, exceeding the vision," Martin Middernacht, managing director of CHI Farms Ltd said, while expressing his gratitude to the team. "The Arbor Acres breed is performing extremely well in the Nigerian market, at both Parent Stock and broiler level, and I look forward to seeing the developments in the genetic potential of the breed in the future,” Middernacht added.
"The results we have been experiencing in the field have given us the confidence to highlight the theme of ‘Exceeding the Vision’ to describe the continuous genetic improvement of the Arbor Acres breed. For that, I would like to express a huge thank you to our distributors for their efforts in showcasing the best of the Arbor Acres genetics,” Khalil Nassar, international commercial manager of MEA, Arbor Acres remarked.
