The Club mirrors those for Ross customers in Western Europe with an emphasis on not just celebrating success but also sharing the secrets of such high performance figures. The name derives from the entry criteria, namely achieving an European Production Efficiency Factor (EPEF) of 400 or more, a formula that uses daily weight gain, mortality and feed conversion to provide a figure that can indicate a flock's overall performance.

Prodo was the first ever recipient of honours in the Ross® 400 club in the Russian Federation. Prodo's Kaluga complex joined the Ross 400 club with an EPEF of average 410 in one cycle.

In the Russian Ross 400 Club award ceremony, Kaluga Poultry Farm, part of the Prodo Group, was represented by General Director Sergey Gorodnich, Production Director Roman Isichenko and farm workers who were involved in achieving this significant result.

Roman Isichenko, said: "We are very happy to see the name of our farm in the list of Ross 400 Club members. We analysed our list of results in depth and found our best EPEF is 438. It is our new target now to beat this incredible result and we are sure that the progress of the Ross broiler will help us make this happen."

Eduard Taktarov, Sales Director of Aviagen in Russia, added: "It is always rewarding to see our farmers achieve their targets through dedication and hard work. Membership of the Ross 400 Club is now an important goal for many breeders and who knows what will happen in 3, 5, 10 years time? Maybe a 500 EPEF will not be enough for the name of our Club… I would like to add that the best EPEF figures always correlate with lowest cost of broiler meat produced so make a recipe of success for our growers."

Slovenia’s Agromerkur achieved an EPEF of 403 at 35 days. Although the targets are possible they are exceptionally hard to reach and need the utmost attention to detail from poultry managers to get past the magic 400 mark. The results highlight the genetic potential and cost efficiency of the Ross broiler in the growing Eastern European markets. The Award was handed over by Balázs Takács General Manager and Róbert Roszkopf, Sales Manager of Aviagen Kft.

Róbert Roszkopf added: "We were more than happy to hand over the award to Mr Jurij Bertalanic and Tomislav Kova?i?, dr.vet.med. and Director of Agromerkur, the first member of 400 Club within Central Eastern Europe.

"The excellent results that they are getting time and time again, demonstrate quite clearly that our Ross 308 broiler can perform in all conditions. We have a lot of customers within the Aviagen KFT region very close to achieving 400 EPEF and anticipate that membership of the 400 Club will grow rapidly in the near future."

Jurij Bertalani? , Primary Production Manager, Agromerkur added: "We were happy to achieve this result and become a member of the Ross 400 Club. We always had good results with Ross but nowdays they are amazing; low FCR, high liveability, combined with a good daily gain give us a huge potential to maximise profit in a tough market. Our average results are still above 370 EPEF and I am sure we can improve it in the future with the help of Aviagen and the excellent Ross 308 genetics."