“I want to thank everyone involved
in VIV Europe for making it so successful.” VIV Worldwide project manager Ruwan
Berculo is happy with the VIV Europe 2014 results. The world expo for the
global animal husbandry and processing received exceptionally high approval
ratings from visitors and exhibitors. The organisers met their objectives to
create the best possible business environment for the industry.
Berculo
considers the success a joint effort. “In fact, I think its success was founded
especially on the confidence that the industry had in creating and investing in
a world expo which would bring everyone together at an important time for the
future of animal protein supply and demand. Our job as organisers was to make
sure everyone was welcomed and given every assistance in their visit.”
Compact and comfortable
“Right from
the start, our focus had been to create the best possible business environment
for professionals from the industries of poultry, pork, feed, meat and fish,”
says Berculo, “Exactly as we promised, we have had a show that was
businesslike, compact, comfortable, informative and more welcoming than any
other event in the past.”
Networking and matchmaking
The organisers’
main objective was to be best for business for people from all parts of the
world and create fruitful matchmaking between buyers and sellers in different ways. Ruwan Berculo explains: “For
the first time at a VIV exhibition there were opportunities for people to meet
informally in smaller groups at networking sessions, dedicated to specific
countries and regions in Africa, China
and Latin America.” These sessions were very
well attended and there was also a positive response to the invitation for
visitors to take part in a day of field trips to locations in the Dutch
poultry, feed and pig sectors.
Sustainability and efficiency
“The
speakers in our conference programme did an excellent job of emphasising both
the opportunities and the challenges that lie ahead for animal protein production
around the world. Sustainability is essential and we heard a calculation that
producing poultry and fish can be as sustainable as the production of a crop
such as cashew nuts in terms of use of resources. But the need for efficiency
was underlined in the same context, because it seems that the weakest
performers in farming account for over half of all carbon dioxide emissions associated
with farms.”
Innovation Awards
A world of new products awaited visitors to VIV Europe 2014, where
a total of 38
products were nominated for the four categories of the show’s Innovation
Awards. Marel Stork Poultry Processing
headed the Processing category and won the overall award with its SmartWeigher
line for accurate grading and distribution of broilers at the highest possible
processing speeds. Kemin took the
prize in the category Health and Nutrition with its Lipid Evaluation Test that
provides feed formulators with a nutritional profile of sources of oils and
fats for poultry and livestock diets. Hotraco
Agri won in the Farming and Housing category with its Fortica touch-screen
poultry house computer that gives the user complete control over all housing
processes such as climate, feed and water, egg flow and animal weighing. In the
fourth category, Hatching and Breeding, the winner was HatchTech with its revolutionary HatchCare system
for higher hatchability rates and better chick quality in which a key
feature is the early feeding of the newly hatched chicks.
Personality
Awards
The show additionally recognized four famous names in
the global poultry industry, who became the latest recipients of the European Poultry
Personality Awards co-sponsored by Positive Action Publications and VIV. Dr.
Piet Simons was announced as VIV Poultry Personality 2014; he is a past
president of the World’s Poultry Science Association who is now an Ambassador
for the Dutch Poultry Centre after a career in poultry research. Otto van Tuijl, technical director of
Aviagen EPI, won the VIV Poultry Breeder Personality Award 2014 and Jack Hazenbroek, creator of poultry
processing systems company Systemate Holland, was awarded the title VIV Meat
Personality 2014. Nigel Horrox, who
will be the next president of the World’s Veterinary Poultry Association and is
the owner and publisher of Positive Action Publications, received a special
Oeuvre award from the VIV Europe organizers to recognize his contribution to
the international development of the poultry sector.
High ratings
In
show-time surveys conducted among the 20,214 visitors and the 591 exhibiting
companies, people visiting the event awarded it an unprecedented 7.9 average
score (on a scale where 10 indicates the highest satisfaction), while
exhibitors rated it at 8.1. “To have such high ratings is very unusual for
large European trade shows,” comments VIV Europe exhibition manager Ruwan
Berculo. “It is better than we could have wished for.” VIV Europe could have
been called VIV World, given the fact that over half of its visitors came from
non-European countries. Altogether the
event over its three days was attended by people from 136 countries.
Planning
has started already for the next VIV Europe, which will return to Utrecht in The
Netherlands in the spring of 2018.
The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by
The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine
GFMT which is published by
Perendale Publishers Limited.
The IM 9500 NIR Grain Analyzer has been officially approved
by the BEV (Bundesamt für Eich- und Vermessungswesen), the national metrology
institute providing scientific and technical services in Austria.
