The founding days

At the end of the 1950s, animal nutrition, which until then had been regarded as part of fine milling, developed into an independent branch of industry. The growing demand for products of animal origin by consumers also presented compound-feed manufacturers with new challenges. The production rate in West Germany in 1960 was about 4 million tons per year. It became apparent that the technical equipment and all related aspects of compound-feed production were no match for the growing demands. Although well-known mechanical engineering factories had already done a lot in the field of process engineering, this was more related to narrowly defined and barely published problems. Small and medium-sized enterprises lacked the financial means and technical prerequisites for the targeted basic research.

The concrete impetus to close the existing gap in research came in 1960 from the Association of the Feed Industry. The former General Manager Heinrich Asch held talks with representatives of mechanical engineering and the compound-feed industry and initiated discussions and negotiations, which emerged as a goal, a research community for to establish the technology of compound feed production. The later first director of the institute, Dr. Wolfgang Friedrich, been involved. Through his activities as an assistant at the Institute of Mills at the then Technical University of Braunschweig and as head of the process engineering test department of the company MIAG/Mills and Mechanical Engineering GmbH, he appeared as a scientist and at the same time as an engineer with industrial experience for this task particularly suitable.

Founding plenary on 13 May 1961
Following a lecture event organized by the Association of the Feed Industry, the participants can discuss the establishment of a joint research group with a focus on technology. There is a lot of interest, there are also interested parties from the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland.

At the subsequent annual general meeting of the Association of the Feed Industry, the founding of the International Research Association for Feed Technology, or IFF for short, can be decided as an independent organization. Nevertheless, the Association of the Feed Industry offers idealistic as well as financial support. In addition, the start-up phase is characterized by a close connection to the Technical University of Braunschweig.

The founder session of the IFF on 13 December 1961
The “founding meeting” in the premises of the Technical University of Braunschweig, attended by members of well-known companies and associations of the compound feed and machine industry, is chaired by Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Friedrich and initially envisages the adoption of the statutes, according to which there should be as organs the general meeting, the council and a scientifically oriented board of trustees. Dr.-Ing Heinz Gehle is elected as chairman of the board.