Arbor Acres Middle East & Africa Association Meeting ‘Exceeds the Vision’ in Dubai

Arbor Acres Middle East & Africa Association Meeting ‘Exceeds the Vision’ in Dubai

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. This was the first face-to-face meeting this group had since 2018, when they last met in Dubai for the Arbor Acres 85^th celebration.

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 topics to the poultry industry such as security of supply, food security, and strengthening local production through investments within the region.

A number of key presentations were given including:

• Aviagen Veterinary Health Director, Colin Adams presented on the Great Britain (GB Enhanced Standard) compartmentalization program 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 poultry market trends post COVID-19.
• Bill Levell, owner of WLM Marketing Management and Training, ran a compartmentalization and regionalization workshop that outlined how to prepare a document with the local Ministry showcasing the key selling messages of compartmentalization 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 GB Enhanced Compartment Scheme to ensure security of supply into the TMEA region.

Compartmentalization and regionalization are key topics for our Arbor Acres distributors as they play a crucial role in lobbying with their local governments, to accept and implement compartmentalization from approved compartments in the UK and the USA, in order to ensure security of supply to the region in the event of a notifiable disease outbreak in the exporting country.