The Poultry Meat Training Initiative announced today that the scheme has successfully enrolled over 2,000 individuals from the poultry industry onto their Poultry Passport scheme.
The Poultry Meat Training Initiative was launched at the Chicken 2008 conference by the scheme’s chairman John Reed of Cargill Meats Europe.
December 2008 saw the first companies enrol onto the scheme, now seven months on eleven companies have enrolled, including many of the major integrators and their contract farmers. Leroy Burrell of Poultec Training, who are the scheme administrators added "We have had an excellent response since the launch of the scheme, with eleven companies enrolled. Flock keepers are seeing the clear benefits of an industry wide standard in training from a scheme that has been developed by the poultry industry."
The Poultry Meat Training Initiative was established and managed by a consortium made up of poultry companies representatives, British Poultry Council, National Farmers Union, Assured Chicken Production, Lantra the Sector Skills Council for the environmental and land-based sector and the scheme administrators, Poultec Training Limited, a specialist poultry training company and National Skills Academy Champion for Meat and Poultry.
The Poultry Meat Training Initiative was developed in response to the inconstancy of training and training records being recognised as the biggest non-compliance issue found during audits carried out in the industry assurance schemes. John Reed of Cargill Meats Europe and chairman of the PMTI added "The poultry industry has been proactive in developing this scheme, for the first time industry has established minimal training standards, specific to each job role. The industry sees this as an important factor on meeting the current and emerging regulatory requirements".
Poultec Training has been working closely with Lantra to develop the Poultry Passport system, using their Skills Manager software as its foundation. The key focus was to provide a system that meets the needs of both the Poultry Meat Training Initiative group and the poultry companies enrolling onto the scheme.
Lantra’s Regional Partnership Manager for the East of England, Mike Appleyard, added: "Lantra’s Skills Manager clearly has great benefits for the sector and Poultec has effectively promoted the benefits of the system and made it a fantastic success. The poultry industry is to be complimented on seeing the value of the system to the agricultural industry. Monitoring skills and taking time to look at where staff can develop not only helps motivate them but it also makes them feel valued and part of the long term future of the business."
The schemes’ website PoultryPassport.org has recently undergone a major facelift. The new site developed by Poultec’s in-house web development team, now provides a valuable resource for the industry. "In re-developing the website we wanted to ensure that the site has a clean, fresh feel but contains all the information which is beneficial to flock keepers, such as the codes of practices and production guides" added Poultec Training’s Industry Partnerships Manager, Leroy Burrell.
All those working on the scheme look forward to the coming year and to continuing upon its current success.
