IEC Young Egg Leaders are the sons and daughters of owners from the world’s dynamic egg production and processing businesses, who are already involved in the business at a senior level.
By identifying and nurturing capable individuals, who share the same commitment to advancing their careers within the egg industry, we all stand to benefit over the coming years.
Providing an opportunity to meet like-minded individuals and broadening horizons has proved to be a key attribute of IEC’s Young Egg Leaders Programme. Some of our graduates, were equally keen to highlight the value that IEC adds. This sentiment was best captured by Emmanuel Destrijker, Ferme Hellebecq (Canada); “I would like to thank the IEC for the leadership in this project. This opportunity gave me the chance to get in contact with the world leaders of our industry and now after two years I can say that I am very happy to be part of IEC.”
Speaking about the programme’s many advantages, YEL graduate, Ross Dean, from Center Fresh Group (USA) offered his thanks; “I appreciate being a part of the Young Egg Leader programme because I have expanded my network of colleagues and knowledge in the international egg community.”
Our YEL graduates' unique experiences and perspective also serve to furnish the industry with greater insight into this demographic. Carolina Gutierrez Gonzalez, Jocef Avicola (Mexico) said; “Young farmers should be proud to be part of such an important industry, providing high quality protein in the form of eggs is a huge responsibility and has infinite areas of opportunity. We will offer egg and egg based products that reach young consumers. It includes awareness and sharing the global concern of animal well-being and the use of organic and high quality products to feed them. The key is always taking the primary sector to the next and better levels.”
The egg industry’s critical role in engaging with this audience was reiterated by Rebeca Gutierrez Gonzalez Jocef, Avicola (Mexico); “It is important to raise awareness of involving young people in the poultry industry, (as the millennial generation) by communicating and giving information about the process of making an egg, and of course to gain consumer trust. This generation have to make the ‘Globalizeggtion’ go on.”
YEL’s potential impact has important implications as Ross has identified; “Our industry is an exciting and dynamic environment to be a part of. Because there are benefits and trade-offs associated with the various housing systems, we remain focused on maintaining excellent care of our flocks and producing safe quality eggs.”
Rebeca also went on to say that the industry’s primary objective must remain with increasing egg consumption worldwide, “as it is the most complete protein.”
Marking the successful conclusion of this initial phase, we hope that our international YEL graduates’ observations will encourage other young people to consider applying for a place in 2018 and beyond.
As we prepare to recruit our third group, YEL continues to be an ambitious and inspiring development for the sector. Hari Mulpuri, Mulpuri Poultries (India), explains the incentives for signing up to the programme; “One gets a chance to meet people from across the globe and someone, somewhere might have the answers to the problem you are facing now. Whether branding eggs or handling Avian Influenza or Animal Welfare, one gets to learn a lot from the global community.”
This point of view was corroborated by Emmanuel; “What I learned from my experience at the international level, is that we have to be involved in many different ways – to talk, explain and defend our global interests. We are the ones who know our industry the best and we need to be its voice.”
If YEL sounds like it might be for you, Hari’s final conclusion offers a persuasive argument; “Come for the learning.” - We hope many of you will choose to!
If you are inspired by our YEL candidates or have an aspiring young colleague that you believe would benefit from the mentoring programme then we are now seeking nominations for 2018 and 2019.
Contact Cassy@internationalegg.com for further details
