Ross Middle East & Africa Association Takes Place in Dubai After 3 Years
Ross distributors from across Turkey, the Middle East and Africa travelled to Dubai for the RossMiddle East and Africa Association (RMEAA) meeting from 16-20 November. This was the first face-to-face meeting the team had with distributors since 2019, and so was very important for us in order to enhance our customer connections, and also to bring important updates to them.
Aviagen executives including Jan Henriksen, CEO, Tom Exley, President of TMEA, Michael Garden, Business Manager, MENA and Robert Roszkopf, Business Manager, SSA, joined the group alongside the Ross TMEA team, Aviagen genetics and veterinary experts and specialists.
Key commercial discussions important to the region centered on critical topics to the poultry industry such as food security, security of supply and strengthening local production through investments within the region. Aviagen Veterinary Health Director, Colin Adams, gave a presentation on the Great Britain (GB Enhanced Standard) compartmentalization program as an effective strategy to safeguard poultry trade to the TMEA region, during a notifiable avian disease outbreak in the supplying country.
Bill Levell, owner of WLM Marketing Management and Training, conducted a compartmentalization and regionalization workshop that outlined how to prepare a document with the local Ministry, highlighting the key selling messages, to assist the importing country on how to amend its local import certificate with the appropriate wording. This is to help the local Ministry to work together with DEFRA and the USDA in order to accept the GB Enhanced Compartment Scheme to ensure security of supply into the TMEA region.
Our guest speaker, Kate Hartley, co-owner of Polpeo, gave a presentation on crisis management with a correct communication plan, which once again had a key focus on security of supply, especially with regards to an Avian Influenza outbreak.
Compartmentalization and regionalization are key topics for our RMEAA distributors as they play a crucial role in lobbying with their local governments, to accept and implement compartmentalization from an approved compartment in the UK and the USA. This is in order to ensure that national food security is maintained in the distributor’s country of residence in the event of a notifiable disease outbreak in the exporting country.
Rupert Claxton, Senior Strategy Consultant for GIRA, gave the audience an update on the global and regional poultry market trends and what to expect in the future.
During this meeting, we also celebrated a key milestone, which was the 65th anniversary of the Ross brand. This was recognized throughout the meeting in our branding, and a video that was created to celebrate the last 65 years, and in particular the Ross brand within the TMEA region.
