QA on Wolfgang Apel's resignation from the Board of Trustees

"Only togetherness for more consumer protection"

At the fifth meeting of the QS Board of Trustees on February 11.02.2004, XNUMX, Mr. Wolfgang Apel, President of the German Animal Welfare Association, “canceled” the German Animal Welfare Association's involvement in the further development and implementation of the QS system. The QS Board of Trustees regrets the withdrawal of the German Animal Welfare Association from participating in the broad implementation of QS. Not working against each other, but only working together could gradually introduce the changes in the keeping of farm animals, which the animal welfare association has called for years, into the daily practice of animal husbandry. The regret by the Board of Trustees relates not only to the termination itself, but in particular to the underlying misunderstanding about the goals of the QS system and what this cross-level security partnership can achieve in the first few years of its existence.

QS is an external quality management and auditing system that dynamically adapts to the growing requirements and represents a service instrument for continuous process improvement for all stages of food production. QS thus implements the guarantees expected by the food producers about compliance with the legally prescribed minimum standards and fulfills further additional criteria voluntarily agreed by the individual levels. The standards can be further developed at any time.

The termination of the cooperation of the German Animal Welfare Association is based on a deliberate misinterpretation of the actual tasks and goals of QS. QS strives to make qualified food safety transparent for consumers. As many companies as possible at all stages of the food production chain are therefore involved in a system of transparency and the implementation of self-control and neutral control that has not been available up to now.

Knowing that significant improvements in all areas of a very heterogeneous and diversified production area such as agriculture (i.e. also aspects of animal welfare in farm animals) first require an instrument for implementing the desired changes such as the QS system, QS does not "terminate" the German Animal Welfare Association the cooperation that was offered to him from the beginning, but continues to keep the door open for the sake of the cause and the animals.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Blaha
Chairman of the Board of Trustees of QS Quality and Safety GmbH

Source: Bonn [ qs ]