He brings to Cobb more than 20 years' experience of sales and business development in international markets, and was from 1995 vice president of sales and marketing for Embrex responsible for North America, Japan and Australia.

He leads the Cobb Europe management team comprising of sales and marketing director Ronald Lelieveld, director of technical services John Vincent, production director Glen Willbye, planning director Jan Buitenhuis and finance manger Frank Benus.

Mr Cosgriff obtained a BSc at Christchurch University in New Zealand and began his career there, in pharmaceutical sales, before moving to Australia where he worked for Monsanto for six years introducing Alimet to the poultry industry. Brian worked for SmithKline Beecham Animal Health for nine years, progressing from product manager to sales director for Australia before accepting an assignment in the US as strategic product development director responsible for global commercial development of two major product groups, parasiticides and anti-bacterials for the company.

The new position of general manager in Cobb Europe offers a further challenge to repeat the increasing success of the company across North and South America in a diverse region covering Europe, Middle East and Africa.

"Formation of an effective management team to lead and coordinate the activities of the different functions that make up successful business will be critical in the early stages," states Brian. "We will focus strongly on the exciting potential of the Cobb 500 and the clear advantages in efficiency and growth it offers customers in our region. The Cobb 500's superior performance in feed conversion on a lower density ration is especially appealing when feed and grain prices are set to increase over the foreseeable future and apply additional pressure to customer profitability. "