British Pig and Poultry Fair 2010: It's all about you...

Visitors to this year’s British Pig & Poultry Fair will experience a continuation of the journey started two years ago by leading monogastric animal feed business and partner to the Fair, ABN.

The innovative feature stand will take visitors on a journey through the range of solutions being delivered by ABN to the many challenges facing pig and poultry producers.

Commenting on two of the recurring themes ABN managing director Alan Murphy says "We look forward to welcoming visitors to the Fair and showcasing the many ways in which we are supporting the industry and promoting British to consumers."

Since the 2008 Fair a huge amount of work has been done, not least the creation of Pig & Poultry LIVE 09 in partnership with RASE where we brought both supply chains together and the event identified marketing as the key issue to be tackled" Mr Murphy explains, "Its then about what actions you take, what can you actually deliver for the pig and poultry sectors, and we have directly engaged with consumers in order to meet that challenge. The headline debate Can we get consumers to buy more British? will be informed by unique consumer visits to farms organised by ABN and RASE."

Mr Murphy continues, "We also supported NFU at the BBC Good Food Show where we listened to the views of hundreds of consumers and promoted Red Tractor. The results are fascinating, and underline the scale of the task we face. More importantly they signpost future actions and initiatives that will continue to deliver positive change for the industry."

In January, as part of this work the company launched The ABN Innovation Award and the £1,000 prize will be presented on the second day of this year’s Fair.

"The award provides a new and unique opportunity for young people from both outside and within the industry to put forward an exciting and innovative marketing concept for British pig or poultry food products," says ABN’s commercial services director Angela Booth. "It’s a great opportunity for the next generation to put forward their ideas and take part in this prestigious national award."

Its not all about marketing though, in tackling the wide range of challenges faced by producers ABN are keen to stress the importance of research and development and the stand will show how their on-going investment in R&D delivers tangible benefits for the industry.

In 2008 the company introduced a text message service to keep producers in touch with commodity prices of key raw materials and in a major development at this years’ Fair will launch a completely new web based raw material service abnrm.com. Producers will have the chance to try out the new website and experience first hand the advantages it will bring to their business.

In summing up the stand Mr Murphy adds "We invite producers to visit us with their own individual business challenges in mind, we are confident we can show where ABN is delivering solutions and taking the stress out of these issues"