Cobb Seminar Sets Formula for Advice to Indonesian Customers

Over 200 customers attended the two-day Cobb technical seminar held at the Hotel Shangri-La in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Cobb Asia team, together with the support of the Cobb World Technical Support Team, covered a wide array of topics involving breeder, hatchery and broiler management, nutrition, health and biosecurity, ventilation and research.

In addition to the seminar, the week also included a farm visit to evaluate some of the production facilities and a round-table discussion between customers and the Cobb technical team.

“A lot of issues can be resolved in this way as individual companies and operations have different needs,” said Orlando Fernandez, director of Cobb Asia technical services. 

“We believe that visiting customers is a more personal way of communicating how to best achieve the maximum potential of the bird.

“As the market for the Cobb 500 continues to grow across Indonesia and the rest of the Asia/Pacific region, our strong sales and technical team is expanding to provide for the educational, training and technical needs of customers in all aspects of poultry production.”

Cobb and Irvine’s Celebrate 50th Anniversary

The 50-year association between Cobb and Irvine’s in Zimbabwe was marked by a presentation attended by more than 120 guests from the global poultry industry at Hannover this week.

In presenting David Irvine with a commemorative plaque, Jerry Moye, president of Cobb-Vantress, said the company greatly valued its relationship with its distributors and spoke of the great success of the Irvine family in sustaining and growing their business during the many difficulties they had faced during those 50 years.

Mr. Moye said the two companies shared similar values centered on treating team members with respect and providing strong service to their respective customer bases. He also emphasized the ‘family’ atmosphere that both Cobb and the Irvine’s create with their employees, customers and communities.

The original agreement was signed by John Knowles, co-founder of Cobb in the UK, with David’s father Bill in the former country of Rhodesia.  Mr Knowles, who moved out of the poultry industry to found Marwell Zoo, spoke in a video message of the ‘heroic’ efforts that the Irvine’s had made to develop their business through troubled times for Zimbabwe.

David Irvine spoke of how the business has developed from the early years when his father bought a 600-egg incubator to operate in a garage with chicks reared by his mother in a small bedroom.  The first imports of Cobb chicks came through Ireland but trade restrictions from 1965 prevented imports of stock until the country’s independence in 1980.

As business grew new hatcheries were opened in 1990 and 2000 producing together almost 900,000 chicks a week, but then with hyperinflation destroying the economy output fell to under 20,000 a week.  But since the introduction of the US dollar in 2009 inflation had dropped to two percent, enabling production to return to more than 800,000 a week with a continually increasing flock of Cobb 500 grandparent stock to provide for future needs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Today through Cobb Africa Irvine’s are selling Cobb parent stock in 16 countries across sub-Saharan Africa where Cobb is the dominant breed.

Today the Irvine’s business is not only contributing to food production in Zimbabwe and the region but also housing 800 families, providing primary school education for 800 pupils and running two clinics.  

Poland ‘Good Among European Countries for Performance’

More than 180 breeder and broiler farmers, veterinarians and nutrition specialists took part in the symposium organized by Cobb Germany at Havet, one of the leading seaside resorts in Poland.

Leo von Drechsel, general manager of Cobb Germany and Wimex, said that Polish people should be proud living in a country that is becoming each year more important in the European poultry business.

James Truscott, director of Cobb Germany, spoke about importance of a ‘tailor made’ approach to poultry management, especially with significant shortage of feed raw materials and dramatic increases in commodity prices.

“Poland looks good among European countries for its breeder and broiler performance,” he said.  “Yet there is always room for fine tuning with all our speakers pointing to important details in hatching eggs, breeder and broiler management and nutrition to achieve higher profitability.”

The guest speakers  - hatchery specialist Dr. Ron Meijerhof, veterinarian Dr. Matthias Todte, and broiler and breeder specialist Paul Welten - focused on effective management in each segment of poultry production.  Dr. Tony Marangos, nutrition expert, spoke about feeding strategies for Cobb 500.

James Truscott thanked the Cobb Polish team — Aldona van Krevel, Ireneusz Rosada, Piotr Czaplicki and Tomasz Torgowski — for their part in making such a success of the event. 

During the ceremonial dinner Ireneusz Rosada, technical services manager, announced awards for the best performing Cobb flocks in 2011 with the winners receiving cockerel award statues.

Source:  Cobb-Vantress, Inc.

  Guests at the Cobb ceremonial dinner.