Consumers, producers and governments in Asia and worldwide are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of safe food and the contribution of feed safety to it. Johan den Hartog, Managing Director of GMP+ International: ‘The developments in Asia are challenging. The production of aqua food, dairy, meat and eggs is booming in China, Vietnam, India, Indonesia and Thailand. Besides the attention for food safety, also the awareness of the relevance of sustainability is growing'.

Victam Asia is the Asia-Pacific's premier and largest event for the production & processing of animal feed, pet food & aqua feed and also biomass technology. During the latest exhibition in Bangkok, from 15 - 18 February 2012, GMP International organized a seminar during the first exhibition day. This seminar was sponsored by three organisations: DNV Business Assurance (Malaysia), Bühler (Switzerland) and Baja Agro International Agroin (Mexico).

About 100 exhibition visitors attended this GMP+ seminar, coming from about 20 countries with a high number of participants from Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines. Four presentations were given.

Firstly, Johan den Hartog, GMP+ International's Managing Director, gave a presentation entitled "Challenges for global Feed Safety and Sustainability Assurance". He explained that the organizational structure of GMP International is very suitable to reach one, globally desired level of feed safety assurance, based on well-balanced and international multi-stakeholders' participation. Partnership plays a crucial role for organising support, involvement and engagement of the stakeholders in the decision - making process regarding the content of the GMP+ FSA scheme.

The second presentation was given by Dik Wolters, project manager of GMP + International. He explained about the structure of the GMP+ Feed Safety Assurance scheme. He further highlighted a number of important substantive elements of the GMP + FSA scheme and how a company can get GMP+ certified.

The third speaker was Stefan Hoh, Product Manager Feed & Biomass of Bühler AG, Switzerland. His presentation was about Feed Safety and Sustainability in Poultry Feed. He explained how technology can contribute to feed safety, especially the microbiological aspects. He further explained how technological innovations can contribute to sustainability in feed production and livestock farming by energy saving in the feed mill and improvement of the animal health and performance in livestock breeding.

Finally, Johan den Hartog and Dik Wolters of GMP+ International gave an introduction to the GMP+ Feed Safety Database and the usefulness for GMP+ certified companied for carrying out their company-specific risk assessments.

You can find the presentations here