The United States of America Poultry & Egg Export Council, (USAPEEC) on Monday started a two-day training workshop for 100 culinary students from technical universities across Ghana.

The programme by the American-based poultry advocacy NGO with a mission to promote American poultry products, was held at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra.

The programme also aims at educating the culinary students on poultry and various aspects of culinary arts.

It will offer the top 10 students an opportunity to compete against each other in a biannual National Cooking Competition for Technical Universities which also seeks to build an exquisite human capital to man the country’s fast growing hospitality industry.

The ultimate future-chef will be awarded a fantastic package, including a three months culinary internship at the Labadi Beach Hotel.

The training instructions are led by the renowned American chef, David Bonom and Ghanaian senior chef Rutherford Opoku-Boahene .

Rutherford Opoku-Boahene on his part said he was impressed by the performance of the participants.

Background of USPEEC
In 1956, three years after United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organised the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) as an arm of government to help U.S. agriculture establish its presence in a global marketplace, USAPEEC's predecessor organisation, the Poultry & Egg Institute of America (PEIA), entered into a marketing arrangement with FAS. As a result, PEIA became a FAS cooperator organisation and was responsible for administering export promotion funds allocated annually by USDA as part of the Farm Bill. For years, PEIA operated independently as an export trade association. In the late 1970s, PEIA fell on hard times.

The U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, then known as the Southeastern Poultry & Egg Association (SPEA), stepped in and salvaged the organization, making it a division of SPEA, and changed its name to the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council as of March 15, 1984. While USAPEEC operated as a division of SPEA (March 15, 1984 - Sept. 30, 1985), SPEA provided $154,000 in funding for USPEEC's operations.

In September 1985, USAPEEC became a separate corporation but continued to share office space with SPEA through February 1986. In March 1986, USAPEEC moved to its first office in Tucker, Georgia. During that first fiscal year of USAPEEC's existence as a separate entity, SPEA contributed $125,000 to USAPEEC's operations. Jim Sumner was named president in 1990, and in 1992, USAPEEC moved to expanded quarters in Stone Mountain, Ga., until 2021. In April 2021, USAPEEC moved back to Tucker in the newly renovated headquarters of USPOULTRY, and is part owner of the building.

In the intervening years, USAPEEC has evolved from an association whose major purpose is the promotion of U.S. poultry and egg products through its network of 14 international offices and consultants to an organisation that advocates for the industry on trade policy issues.