This week, the American Feed Industry Association recognized Angele Thompson, Ph.D., as its 2024 Friend of Pet Food award winner.
This week, the American Feed Industry Association and Feedstuffs named MFA Incorporated’s Aurora Mill facility of Aurora, Mo., as its 2023 Commercial Dry Feed Facility of the Year.
As part of my responsibilities at the American Feed Industry Association, I had the pleasure of spending most of last week at the AFIA Liquid Feed Symposium (LFS) in Louisville. This event is planned, moderated and hosted by AFIA’s Liquid Feed Committee, which is a perennial favorite of mine, and with good reason I suppose.
We were proud to recognize some outstanding individuals and members this week at the American Feed Industry Association’s Liquid Feed Symposium.
The American Feed Industry Association is excited to welcome back Jessica Morse. She was with the association several years ago and is back as our director of meetings and events. Jessica is passionate about serving our members and is really looking forward to being back in the animal food industry. Learn more about Jessica below.
Today, the American Feed Industry Association released our annual, “Our Industry, Our Promise” report, detailing the operational challenges facing today’s animal feed and pet food manufacturers at the global and international levels. It also discussed the ways the AFIA is addressing those challenges head-on, while laying the groundwork for a prosperous future for our members and association into the future.
Last week, I, along with several members of the American Feed Industry Association staff, participated in the Animal Agriculture Alliance’s Stakeholders Summit, where we walked away with a lot to chew on, from what is driving people to click on news articles about the animal agriculture industry to who is shaping the coverage and why. Here are some of my takeaways.
If it were to enter the United States, “African swine fever (ASF) would be the most significant animal disease issue the United States has ever seen,” said Cassie Jones, Ph.D., undergraduate research coordinator in Kansas State University’s Department of Animal Sciences and Industry. This is because once the disease is found in feral pigs or ticks, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate, so the focus now, particularly for swine producers and feed manufacturers, should be on prevention.
If you or your customers export animal-based feed or pet food, you know how heavily the industry relies on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). In many cases, you can’t export a feed or pet food without some form of APHIS health certificate or approval. In recent years, getting the documentation needed to export has been more than a headache due to ongoing agency staffing and funding issues, the pandemic and the ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) crisis.
At today's American Feed Industry Association Pet Food Conference, we recognized an individual who has been instrumental in promoting the pet food industry, inluding developing many products, including a dairy feed supplement, a baby pig supplement, a liquid fat delivery system and an organic fertilizer brand. Please join us in congratulating Steve Thomas, former vice president at Darling Ingredients, for being awarded the 2023 Friend of Pet Food Award.