The four-day event celebrated the brand's successes and encouraged dialogue between the participants to help continue the successful growth strategy.

The event united 19 customers from the region with Aviagen experts in order to celebrate the phenomenal successes of IRAA customers over the last four years, including an 80 per cent increase in sales, as well as welcoming three new Grand Parent customers from Korea, Myanmar and Pakistan to the fold. The market presence of Indian River has almost doubled in the four years since 2007 when a smaller customer meeting was arranged and a commitment to support and grow the brand to twice its market share infive years was declared to the assembled group.

Several Aviagen senior and regional managers made presentations covering Aviagen today, an Indian River overview, highlighting it as 'the obvious choice', global disease challenges and nutritional and economic subjects. One of the highlights was the presentation 'Your team = our team', which reinforced the commitment made four years earlier to strengthen partnerships and lay the foundation for success. Presentations from two important markets, Viet Nam and Indonesia, followed along with closing comments.

Fred Kao, Indian River Business Manager, said: "We invited our customers to come to the first Indian River Asia Association meeting to get to know each other and to share the success stories from their respective countries. The interaction among the customers emphasises the importance of how this very special family of Indian River becomes successful in the region. With all the decision-makers sharing their opinions, experiences and how they get through the tough times, together with a range of technical and business presentations from Aviagen, the bond strengthened and the discussion turned to how we become a unit and grow together."

The response to the two-day Indian River Association Meeting was positive from all the attendees with several post-meeting expressions of gratitude.

Kenneth Cheng, owner of Bounty Fresh Foods, commented: "I just wanted to thank you again to the entire Aviagen and Indian River team for such a first-class association meeting."

Mr Harwanto, from Japfa Comfeed in Indonesia, said: "On behalf of our group here, I would like to say thank you for your invitation to Shanghai. I believe the meeting was fruitful and I enjoyed meeting the representatives from other countries. We hope our input regarding IR will be useful for the future."

Indian River Asia Assocation
28 June to 2 July 2011
Shanghai