GMP+ benefits bring in numbers at VIV Asia seminar

On Wednesday March 13, GMP+ International organised a seminar and participants came from over 15, mostly Asian, countries. GMP+ International introduced recent developments in the GMP Feed Certification scheme. A representative of New Leyte Edible Oil MFG Co. from Philippines shared the experiences regarding the application of GMP+ Feed Safety Assurance in this company.

The seminar was chaired by Mr. Johan den Hartog, Managing Director of GMP+ International. He gave an overview of the vision, strategy and mode of operations of the organisation. Key principles are well-balanced multi-stakeholders participation, uniformity regarding feed safety control internationally as well as flexibility in taking into account national diversity.

Mr. Dik Wolters, Project Manager at GMP+ International gave an overview of the GMP+ Feed Certification scheme. Besides that, he explained the recent adaptations. The main focus of the GMP+ scheme is feed safety assurance, but recently the scope of the scheme has been extended to feed responsibility, more precisely responsible soy. It is the first step in this regard in order to provide feed companies the possibility to cope with market demands regarding sustainability in an efficient way via the ‘one stop shop – multiple certifications’ option.

The most inspiring and interesting contribution was provided by Mrs. Liezl R. Cosino, System Officer at New Leyte Edible Oil MFG Co. This company is a coconut milling company from Philippine. The reason for the company for choosing GMP+ certification was market demand. The introduction of GMP+ FSA resulted in a number of benefits for the internal operations as well as for the market position and sales. It resulted in a better monitoring of the operational activities and improvement. An important result was substantial lowering of the aflatoxin level in copra meal. At the end, it increased customer’s satisfaction, resulting in increased sales and zero product rejections.

VIV Asia is a big opportunity to meet all kind of representatives and experts of feed companies from all over the world. The seminar was held in BITEC, the international exhibition location of VIV Asia in Bangkok. The participants were coming from feed companies active in the production of feed ingredients, feed bio-chemicals, premixes as well as compound feed. Additionally, people coming from universities, food (animal processing) companies, certification bodies, governmental institutes, consultants and farmers unions participated. Besides the diversity of the stakeholders, also the origin of the participants was very divers: from over 15 countries, mostly Asian countries, but also from Europe and USA.