Association

The Hungarian Petfood Association was founded on 25 November, 2004.
Founder companies represent over 90% of the Hungarian petfood industry.
The Association’s predecessor was the Hungarian Petfood Manufacturers Association (founded in 1992). The new of the name and organisation structure was due to necessary adaptations to the changes of the operating environment in the previous 15 years, like

• The rapid growth of the Hungarian petfood industry and the fact that Hungary became a European regional manufacturing centre
• Acquiring the position of a driving force of Hungarian agriculture exports
• The challenges of the EU membership
• Development of the consumer protection and changes in customer habits
• New structures in retail trade.

All these changes need more effective communications, representation of industry interests and closer co-operations between the industry companies.
The Hungarian Petfood Association is a FEDIAF member (European Pet Food Industry Federation, www.fediaf.org .).

Goals

The basic aim of the Association is to promote manufacture and distribution of safe foods for companion animals like dogs, cats, small mammals, fish, birds, etc., and to represent the Hungarian pet food industry: regular networking with the Hungarian animal health and other authorities, trade organisations, acquiring state-of-the-art scientific information and sharing best practices of the international petfood industry.    

Results

Since 1992 the Hungarian Petfood Association and its the predecessor, the Hungarian Petfood Manufacturers' Association representing the Hungarian petfood industry has formed a fruitful partnership with the Hungarian decision makers. As a consultative expert the Association participated in the preparation of petfood-related legislation and law harmonisation like the Feed Codex, the Feed Law and feed safety, feed hygiene, consumer protection and some environmental issues.

The Association effectively cared about protecting the prestige of the Hungarian manufacturing and the confidence in locally manufactured petfood products.

Following the norms of the European Pet Food Industry Federation (FEDIAF) the Association worked out the system of self-regulation aiming the environmental-friendly manufacturing of safe petfood and introduced standards of the state-of-the manufacturing practices.

The Association helped the petfood manufacturers to meet the challenges of the European Union and helped to increase their international competitiveness.

FEDIAF's 35th Anniversary its Annual General Meeting is held in Budapest, (19-20 May 2005) and we also take it as a sign of the recognition of the good performance of the Hungarian petfood industry.