Today FEFANA - the EU Association of Specialty Feed Ingredients and their Mixtures - proudly celebrates the milestone of its 50 years’ existence.
The first statutes of FEFANA were signed on the 22nd January 1963 by the National Associations in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The founding members had the forward vision of forming a European Association to act as an interface between the feed additives manufacturing industry as a whole and the European Union, then European Economic Community (EEC), and its Member States authorities.
The acronym F.E.F.A.N.A. originally stood for: Federation Européenne des fabricants d’adjuvants pour la nutrition animale.
Evolution in the European legal framework and market conditions have prompted the alignment of the scope, which currently covers all operators placing on the market specialty feed ingredients and their mixtures.
Through integration of the National Platforms and direct corporate affiliation at European level, FEFANA now counts more than 100 Members companies from 28 countries including the EU, Switzerland and Norway.
Since its foundation, the aim of the association has been to promote the benefits of our products and their safety for animal health, human health and the environment.
Through the ensuing years, the industry played a role in supporting the European agenda in the context created by the introduction of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 1962.
The CAP has been aimed at ensuring the availability of affordable food to European consumers; our products and the scientific and technical know-how of our industry contributed to achieving the remarkable improvements in animal welfare, productivity and product quality which took place in Europe in the past 50 years.
Subsequently, in the new framework created by the White Paper on Food Safety in 2000, our industry embraced its role as one of the stakeholders with the primary responsibility for food safety, and has been actively supporting the EU objectives of achieving the highest standards of feed and food safety.
FEFANA has provided added value to its members and supported the growth of the industry by pooling expertise and know-how from experts throughout Europe and by enabling operators to take the responsibility for the safety of their own products with the support of FAMI-QS, the Quality and Safety System for Specialty Feed Ingredients and their Mixtures.
This European initiative has grown to become a reference at global level, highly regarded by industry and control authorities.
Another important milestone in this phase was the start of the feed additives re-authorisation process supported by the Consortia under the FEFANA umbrella.
FEFANA also share the priority for sustainable growth set out by the Europe 2020 strategy and have been focusing our innovation efforts on achieving resource efficiency and on developing products with a beneficial and mitigating impact on the environment.
FEFANA said it is very proud of these achievements and of the on-going commitment of the specialty feed ingredients industry in bringing the safety, quality and societal value of our products into the 21st century.
Both the European and global agriculture continue to evolve at high speed, and need more than ever the technological and innovative support brought by specialty feed ingredients. The members of FEFANA have actively started to pave the way and look forward to contributing to overcoming the challenges of tomorrow.
