Do regulations kill innovation?

Of course the food & feed scandals were a big influence on this. However, hand there was one important reason we did this – Easy to control and easy to manage. Which has been no problem, until now.

Looking at the challenges we have now in finding new recipes, ingredients, commodities, protein sources this is one of the biggest issues, I think. Because we now have to make feed and petfood more sustainable. We need to find new commodities and new ingredients for feed that helps the farmer produce sustainably and yet still efficiently.

New fodder sources like ‘duckweed’, algae, insects, tangle, fruits, vegetables, food waste etc. are often not allowed to be used without losing the certificates necessary to deliver to the market. Getting the allowance necessary to use those sources is not easy plus the costs involved are high and will not encourage you to do so unless you knew it worked, what cost effects it will give etc.

This is a big dilemma for the industry.

The questions are if the technology and quality management-procedures such as cleaning are in place and if adequate risk management protocols can give the industry the possibility to test those new sources in their business including what the inventory of the risk of using brings us.

Of course there is no discussion on if our feed should be safe. But how do we transfer our feed industry into a sustainable one on this playingfield.

Suggestions how to do this are welcome.