Pas Reform hosts annual meeting of Belgian and Dutch hatcheries and breeders

Members of Belgian and Dutch hatcheries and breeding companies held a general meeting in the Netherlands, with a focus on sustainability in the poultry sector.

Hosted by Pas Reform at the company's Global Distribution Center in Doetinchem, representatives from more than 50 breeding companies and hatcheries, including Aviagen, Cobb, Hubbard, Lohmann and Hendrix Genetics, attended the event which also included a tour of a state-of-the-art training and distribution center.

Following the meeting, Pas Reform CEO Harm Langen outlined the company's recently launched SmartGrowth^™ programme, which will, he said, support customers around the world with smart, integrated, sustainable hatchery solutions that consistently achieve the highest percentage hatch of fertiles - and deliver uniform, healthy day old chicks in growing numbers, as demands on the sector increase.

Bouke Hamminga, Pas Reform's international sales and business development director, concluded the afternoon with a detailed perspective on 'the sustainable hatchery', as requiring a complete range of solutions, not only to address environmental concerns, but also to provide robust governance for food safety and public health, animal health and welfare, as well as innovation in new technologies to drive greater efficiency and process control.

"The need for close, cooperative links between breeding companies and hatcheries has never been greater," concluded Langen. "This is where quality begins - and where standards are set that have implications throughout the poultry value chain, as it scales up to meet substantial increases in demand in the coming years."