Seminar explores challenges to rendering industry

U.S. Poultry & Egg Association’s Poultry Protein & Fat Council sponsored the 2009 Poultry Protein & Fat Seminar featuring Gerald Smith Jr., president of Valley Proteins, Winchester, Va. He presented “A CEO Perspective of the Importance of Rendering.”
Smith explained that fluctuating market conditions, particularly the recent decline in tonnage, causes a major challenge for renderers.
Other challenges include the forecast of only marginal growth in meat and poultry production in the U.S., increasing environmental and food safety regulations and trade issues.
Smith added, however, that biofuels have added significant value to fat products and prices and tonnage should improve, even if at slower rates, as the economy improves.