Europe gains new poultry association
ELPHA – The European Live Poultry and Poultry Hatching Egg Association – was created on 23 March, at a meeting between founding members of several existing European associations: EPB (poultry breeders), AEH (hatcheries), and EPEXA (traders of hatching eggs and day-old chicks) and national associations, the BPC (British Poultry Council), BTT (Hungarian Poultry Product Association) and ZDG (Central German Poultry Organisation).
It is believed the new organisation will offer better representation and promotion of members’ common interests in institutions such as the European Commission and the European Parliament.
ELPHA will serve to represent its members main interests, including EU trade and export, animal health, and animal welfare and genetics, as well as food safety and security issues.
The executive board comprises president, Jacques de Lange (NL); vice-president Graeme Dear (UK); treasurer Anton Butijn (NL); Leo Graf von Drechsel (DE) and Thijs Hendrix (NL). Andrew Large and Louis Perrault have been appointed as deputy member of the executive board.
The board’s main duties will be to initiate actions in the interests of its members, to actively stimulate and motive members through working groups and committees, and to represent ELPHA at meetings with Commission officials and Members of the European Parliament.
