AHDA has launched a membership drive to recruit animal health businesses that employ SQPs.
Bryan Lovegrove, AHDA secretary general, said: “Our current AHDA members employ something like 80% of the AMTRA SQPs and there’s around 800 companies out there who have an SQP – or more than one – who are not members of AHDA.”
Mr Lovegrove has formed a recruitment taskforce, made of up four AHDA Council members: Sophie Smith, chief executive, Downland; Ruth Hatton, trade development manager, Wynnstay; Trevor Frost, senior product manager, Mole Valley Farmers; and Nick Burford, strategic account manager, Elanco Animal Health.
“Instead of just putting out a blanket messaging, ‘come and join AHDA’, we’ll explain the benefits of AHDA, whether you’re a small family business, a medium-sized business, where you may have two or three outlets, or a big regional company,” Mr Lovegrove said.
AHDA is also working with Lee Grist, head of inspections and enforcement at the VMD, to produce a list of what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to VMD inspections.
“I’ll produce a guide and highlight the top 10 things that the VMD is looking for at the moment,” Mr Lovegrove said.
“I’m hoping AHDA members will look at the top 10 things and start doing those as a natural course of their business – you’ll be working to AHDA standards that recognise the inspection criteria of the VMD.”
