QS Advisory Board under new leadership

Johannes Röring new chairman of the QS advisory board for beef, veal and pork

Johannes Röring, farmer and MP from the district of Borken (NRW), is the new chairman of the advisory board for beef, veal and pork in the QS scheme. In January, the members of the Advisory Board elected him as the successor to Franz-Josef Möllers, who in this function had campaigned for the reliability and practical application of the QS scheme for more than ten years.

Röring has been President of the Westphalian-Lippe Farmers' Association (WLV) since May 2012 and represents - also as successor to Franz-Josef Möllers - in the German Farmers' Association (DBV) as "Refining President" with a focus on the interests of rural livestock farmers.

After his election, Röring thanked the members of the Advisory Board for their trust and indicated where he sees the focus of his work in the future: "We have achieved a lot with the QS scheme in the last ten years. My job will be to continue to advance current projects such as antibiotics monitoring and to tackle the new challenges of the entire value chain. The current discussion about animal welfare shows that there is still a lot to do here.”

At the same time, Röring sees the structure of the QS system as a good basis for mastering the tasks of the future. “At QS, representatives from the entire chain sit at one table and discuss things at eye level. Representing the interests of farmers in such an environment is particularly challenging for me,” says Röring.

Together with QS Managing Director Dr. Hermann-Josef Nienhoff Röring thanked his predecessor Franz-Josef Möllers, who had headed the QS advisory board for beef, veal and pork for a total of 2003 meetings since the beginning of 42. During this time, Möllers made a significant contribution to establishing the QS system against some resistance. "As an energetic but always solution-oriented representative of farmers' interests, we could always rely on his sense of what is feasible and a clear focus on the essentials," say Röring and Nienhoff.

About QS

QS Qualitäts und Sicherheit GmbH is the system provider and carrier of the QS testing system for food. The standards defined by QS specify strict, verifiable production criteria for all stages of the value chain - from the feed industry to the food retail trade. The system is characterized by the cross-stage monitoring of these criteria as well as the traceability of the agricultural products and the food made from them. Almost 106.000 companies from the animal feed, agriculture, slaughtering/cutting, processing, butcher's trade, wholesale and food retail sectors as well as more than 24.000 companies from the fresh fruit, vegetable and potato sectors have so far decided to participate in the QS inspection system for food .

On Wikipedia there is [here] a portrait of Johannes Röhring.

Source: Bonn [QS]