FEED Business Worldwide - March, 2012

 

 

by Josline ANG

 

 

Focusing on production safety and sustainability, the International Poultry Expo and International Feed Expo (IPE/IFE) 2012, attracted over 20,500 attendees and 895 exhibitors this year, similar to last year's participation rates of 20,742 attendees and 903 exhibitors. While attendance trend reflects US poultry's technological maturity, it was IPE's character and content that betrayed this year' emerging thought frontiers.

In particular, this year's IPE drew large crowds to its new seminar, The Executive Conference on the Future of the American Poultry and Egg Industry, which invited speakers to expound on the industry's opportunities and challenges. These included high input costs, social issues and government regulations.

 

 "We're at a tipping point where we can really make some progress in this industry. This is an opportunity and a moral responsibility," said Jeff Simmons, president of Elanco Animal Health, one of this executive conference's key speakers. Mr Simmons emphasized that technology has the potential to address 70% to 75% of food-related issues, as it drives production and expands availability and choice, while enhancing sustainability.

 

On the safety theme, Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, under secretary for food safety in the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service addressed recent new poultry inspection regulations, which mostly focused on food safety. Calling the USDA's proposal the "biggest stride that we've taken forward in a very, very long time," she said it would strengthen protections for consumers as well as offer the poultry industry more flexibility, and hence make possible tremendous cost savings for the industry as well as taxpayers.

 

Alongside The Executive Conference on the Future of the American Poultry and Egg Industry, IPE/IFE 2012 presented another new seminar "International Rendering Symposium", with a focus on the efficiency, safety and quality feed processing. The symposium also reviewed new technologies developed overseas and their possible applications for improving the safety and quality of American rendered products. Globally recognised speakers from the National Renderers Association included Tom Cook and Kent Swisher discussed process control methods, microbiological controls, current research and shedded light on using rendered products in high-quality diets for various animal species.

 

With an emphasis on building a culture of ecological harmony, the Animal Agriculture Sustainability Summit gathered industry leaders in a discussion panel to explore green operational approaches to meet the challenges in the poultry industry. Mike Helgenson, CEO of GNP Company remarked that consumers are eager to know their food source and urged making continuous improvement a top business priority. Helgenson added that the poultry industry's vertical integration allowed it to transition towards sustainability far faster than other livestock sectors.

 

Other new dialogues included the Pre-Harvest Food Safety Conference on food safety issues and the International Poultry Scientific Forum. The latter expounded on new scientific findings such as the "Effect of a protease on Phytase when fed to broiler chickens," which was demonstrated by BioResource International. In the exhibit presentation, BRI's proteases phytase enzymes showed good integration with other feed enzymes. The result led to better the health of the broiler chickens for a better yield rate.

 

Building on green sustainability, many companies also took the chance to launch their new innovations or improved products during the IPE/IFE 2012 show. One product introduced was the Versa-Link stainless steel conveyor belt, a durable open metal belt, easier to assemble and remove for cleaning compared to commonly used plastic chain conveyor belt. The stainless steel product possesses higher heat and weight tolerance, and is therefore better at withstanding light to medium duty conveying process in the poultry slaughtering and production. Other benefits of the product include prevention of pathogen growth, greater adaptation to extreme heating and cooling conditions, easy to clean and recyclability.

 

Of course, these new and emerging industry themes are just IPE's latest incarnation. As the most important poultry trade show in the Americas, IPE remains the trade show of choice for the world's two top poultry exporters, the United States and Brazil. Always in touch with the pulse of the industry, the recent emphasis on sustainability, pathogens and food safety reflects the industry's evolution in these new thematic directions.

Going forward, we expect next year's IPE to further expand on these themes and introduce yet another frontier of emerging issue, as this poultry industry mecca continually reinvents itself.