F CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY
Technique and animal nutrition
I
Joint research for innovative products and procedures—Practice-focussed research at the Research Institute of Feed Technology of IFF
n Germany, approximately 80 percent of the produced compound feed is supplied in pelleted form. Since its foundation in 1961, the IFF Research Institute of Feed Technology has been establishing scientific basics for the production of pelleted compound feed and the research works go on since then. The long-standing and manifold research and development works of the Research Institute of Feed Technology regarding milling, mixing and agglomeration influenced the technological development of the production processes of the European feed industry significantly. On that basis, modern research appeals to the current scientific issues.
Research Institute and Research Association
The Research Institute of Feed Technology is maintained by the International Research Association of Feed Technology (IFF). At present, about 80 national and international companies are combined in the Research Association. Membership is open to any interested company. The Research Association was founded on the initiative of the
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German Association of Feed Industry. It exclusively pursues scientific aims to clarify any of the technological issues or problems encountered in industrial compound-feed production through basic research and transfer of findings to real systems and to advance developments in the processes used in feed compounding. The fast and comprehensive transfer of the research findings is ensured by the wide range of seminars. The most important body in the institute’s research focus is the Scientific Advisory Board, which is composed of representatives from relevant research institutions as well as industry and which actively supports research topics based on the requests and needs of the industry. New project ideas are discussed intensively and launched together. The direct connection of the Research Institute to the industry ensures that current and future research work and results are geared to the application-relevant process development of compound-feed production. Research is mainly carried out in the institute’s technical centre. This offers a variety of possibilities: e.g. for the process engineering investigation of single and compound feeds as well as additives. The International Research Association for Feed Technology belongs to the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations – AiF in short – which is the leading national organisation promoting applied research and development benefiting Germany’s small and medium-sized businesses. It builds up alliances together with partners from industry, science and government in order to turn ideas into successful products, processes or services in the market. As an industrydriven organisation, the AiF aims at initiating applied research and development (R&D) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as qualifying the new generation of academics in innovative fields and organising the distribution of scientific knowledge. 100 industrial research associations with approximately 50,000 businesses, mostly SMEs, as members, 1,200 associated research institutes and the AiF’s affiliates in Cologne and Berlin contribute to the AiF innovation network. The AiF manages public programmes of the German federal government to strengthen SME competitiveness. The AiF thus connects enterprises, research and government as well as providing a meeting ground for representatives of business and research. The AiF’s core activity is the so-called Industrial Collective Research (“Industrielle Gemeinschaftsforschung”, IGF). Collective research is a mechanism enabling businesses to solve shared