Three shows in one international platform

 

 

 

The three shows offered an ideal opportunity for equipment and ingredient suppliers to meet both existing and prospective clients such as feedmillers, integrators, hatcheries, grain processors, etc. This year, around 150 of the world’s leading companies were present.

 

Victam Asia 2010 was attended by the world's key suppliers of equipment and technology used in the processing and production of animal feeds and aqua feeds.

 

FIAAP Asia 2010 on the other hand introduced specialist ingredients, additives and formulation technology used within the feed production cycle while GRAPAS Asia 2010 was on its launching year for rice and flour milling and other cereal production.

 

All the three shows were supported by the Thai government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Department of Livestock Development, Department of Fisheries, Thai Feed Mill Association, Thai Rice Milling Association, Thai Petfood Association and the Chamber of Commerce and the Thai Convention & Exhibition Bureau.

 

Andy West from Victam International, the event's organiser, said this year's exhibition expanded by approximately 20% in terms of total area as against that of 2008. In the last edition, West said they only filled the venue's plenary hall and half of the main lobby, this year, the plenary hall and the whole main lobby was occupied for the event.  ''We've been very pleased with the response from the number of exhibitors that have attended, sharing their products. And we are encouraged by the number of visitors that have come. The exhibition started Wednesday (Mar 3) and we have more visitors than we did in 2008. In the opening day, we had higher percentage of foreign visitors than local visitors.''

 

West attributes this higher event participation to Asia's expanding economies. ''Asian industries are expanding and as populations become wealthier, the standard of living improves and people are eating more meat, more dairy products, more fish and shrimp and so therefore the feed industry has to expand as well to supply sufficient feeds. Therefore you're going to have companies coming which will be supplying the needs of the feedmills, etc.''

 

Another highlight of the show was the technical conferences and workshops namely the Aquafeed Horizons Asia 2010, FIAAP Conference and GRAPAS Conference.

 

For the Aquafeed Horizons conference, some of the key presentations were: ''Current aquafeed and aquaculture in Thailand'' by Dr. Juadee Pongmaneerat, senior expert in Fishery Product and Inspection, Thai Department of Fisheries; ''Reassuring the value-chain as to the sustainability and purity of fishmeal and fish oil'' by Dr. Andrew Jackson, technical director, International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organisation; ''Stabilising formulation cost and performance of aquafeeds require innovative approaches'' by Dr. Peter Coutteau, business development manager aquaculture, Nutriad and ''Trends in aquafeed in Southeast Asia and China: Relevance and technical solutions'' by Urs Wuest, Director Engineering & Fulfillment business unit Feed & Biomass, Buhler. 

 

The show also covered the emerging new energy sector of biomass. Biomass is processing of organic wastes into pellets. These pellets can then be burnt in power production facilities as an alternative green energy source.