The 2018 tour to Norway organised by Werner Strydom was sponsored by Kilco, Zoetis and Lohmann GB. After a Sunday seeing the sights of Oslo visits started early the next morning at the British Embassy, followed by a Poultry Workshop hosted by Animalia where the group were given a wealth of information about the Norwegian Poultry Industry. Norway considers itself to have the world’s safest meat and vets are not able to profit from the prescription and sale of antibiotics.
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent visiting Nortura broiler and layer producers and production facilities with a testing overnight train journey in the middle! Nortura is owned by 18,500 farmers from both the poultry and red meat sectors. The Nortura Broiler farms target broilers grown to 2.1kg live weight over 32-34 days with no thinning; all Nortura farms have very low levels of Campylobacter.
One of the highlights of the trip for the group was Thursday and Fridays visits with Salmar AS, a Norwegian Salmon production company, where the group learnt about the synergies between poultry and aquaculture and looked for innovations that could be utilised in the poultry industry. Aquaculture in Norway produced over 1.3million tonnes of fish last year, which is exported to 142 countries. Salmar is one of the four largest producers of Salmon in the world and the group not only received an afternoon of presentations from the Norwegian Seafood Federation and Salmar but also visited the Salmar Processing Plant on FrØya Island. The last visits of the tour were to the Ha Broiler Hatchery and Steinsland & Co, a hatchery and pullet rearer.
The annual Farmers Club Dinner this year turned out to be quite an exciting evening due to it coinciding with the Parliamentary vote regarding extending the deadline for Brexit. Our guest Neil Parish, MP for Tiverton and Honiton, managed to join the group unexpectedly after hot-footing it over after the vote.
The 2019 Spring Study weekend was kindly hosted by Helen and Steve Haughton in Towcester during May. The weekend was well attended by around 30 scholars, partners and guests with several insightful visits over the weekend. The visits started at Heygates Flour Mill followed by a tour of the Coccidiosis and Salmonella vaccine production facilities at the MSD UK headquarters. The day was rounded off nicely with a ride on ‘Charlie’ down the canal at Stoke Bruerne. Saturday started with a fascinating tour of the NSP shoe manufacturing facilities to learn about the art of shoe making. NSP was founded in 1881, originally making shoes for the British Army before developing ‘Solovair’ boots and shoes under licence for AirWair under the name “Dr Martens made by Solovair”. Afterwards the group headed to Bletchley Park for afternoon tea and going back in time visiting the ‘top secret’ home of the World War Two Codebreakers.
Our AGM on the Sunday morning brought scholars up to date with the travels and learnings so far of current scholars Hannah Eastaugh and James Smaldon, alongside a report on the 2018 Study Tour to Norway presented by Sue Shakesheff.
The weekend was very generously sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim, Anpario and Premier Nutrition.
The Poultry group is continuing with its schedule of 3 events per year although the timings of these events will be altered for 2020 to accommodate the Nuffield Triennial Event in New Zealand. The 2020 Autumn Tour will be brought forward to March and the Spring Weekend will be held later in the year.
The 2019 tour to Austria and Hungary was also brought forwards to June. The full report for this, written by Hannah Eastaugh and Heidi Hall is on the Nuffield Website.
The next Farmers Club dinner is being organised for next year, potentially a little earlier than normal to accommodate the Triennial.
The Spring Weekend will likely be held in September in Kent, kindly hosted by Doug Wanstall.
Sophie Edenborough, Secretary
Nuffield Poultry Study Group
