The end of May saw EFPRA welcome members of the European and global rendering industry to Tenerife for the 24th EFPRA Congress. As ever, discussions ranged across a wide variety of topics during the technical and social programme.
0n 28 May, Dr. Martin Alm, EFPRA Technical Director, headed up the Technical Symposium. Delegates heard from Richard van Lijssel (Darling Ingredients), Chairman of EFPRA´s Sustainability Committee, about sustainability in rendering. Beatriz Alvarez (SARIA) presented on ‘EU Biofuels Legislation: Strategic Opportunities for Animal Fats.‘
Dominique P Bureau (University of Guelph, Canada) discussed ‘Formulating Aquaculture Feeds with Processed Animal Proteins.’ The theme was carried on by Leif Kjetil (Skretting) whose presentation was titled ‘What Will It Take to Deliver to the Norwegian Salmon Feed Market’. The day concluded with the EFPRA Annual General Meeting and the World Renderers Organization forum.
On 29 May, EFPRA President Robert Figgener opened proceedings with an overview of how EFPRA sees changes to EU ABP regulation developing over the next couple of years. His message is ‘from crisis rules to risk-based regulation’, essentially much of the ABP regulation was developed at the height of the BSE crisis when there was more uncertainty about dangers and less technical and scientific capacity in the rendering sector to manage risks. Now the situation has changed to it is a sensible step to change regulation to unlock the potential of the rendering sector.
This theme was developed by Dominik Wisser, Livestock Policy Officer at the FAO who talked about ‘Pathways to Sustainable Animal Protein Production: Can We Feed the World While Mitigating Climate Change?‘ Professor Michael Lee of Harper Adams University presented in ‘The role of animal by-products and the circular economy to increase the sustainability of the livestock value chain.‘
Mr. Emilio García Muro, Director-General for Agri-Food Production Health at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, discussed export opportunities and challenges. Mr. Ryan Standard, Editorial & Pricing Director Agriculture & Biofuels at Fastmarkets covered price and market developments and Dirk Dobbelaere, Secretary general of EFPRA concluded proceeding with a statistical overview of the ABP sector.
EFPRA would like to thank all delegates and our sponsors who helped make the event possible.
