Dr Mike Varley will bring unique expertise in both practical pig meat production and academia when he joins BPEX as Head of Knowledge Transfer, Research and Development.

Dr Varley, who joins BPEX on 3 August, has been working as an independent consultant with his own company and before that he was with NuTec UK and then SCA Nutrition, both parts of Provimi.

Dr Mike Varley

He also has many years' experience working at a number of different universities.

His academic and commercial roles have provided the opportunity to travel widely and develop detailed knowledge of pig meat production across the world including visits to North America, Australia, New Zealand, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan Thailand, Malaysia, South America and throughout Europe.

BPEX Director Mick Sloyan said: "Mike has a wealth of experience which dovetails with the needs of BPEX.

"BPEX KT R&D has been transformed in recent years and I look forward to working with Mike to extend that work to deliver even more benefit to levy payers and their businesses."

Mike said: "It is my aspiration to harness existing knowledge and to develop innovative technical solutions to address changes throughout the pig meat supply chain.

"Our pig technology is also seen outside in the wider world as being among the best there is and this in itself may bring commercial advantage to our industry."