Beef producers have sought to calm nerves over BSE breaches reported by the FSA this week, insisting British beef is safe and the risk to consumers is minimal.
It comes as the FSA presented a paper on BSE surveillance and controls at its board meeting on 5 November, warning the reputation of the UK beef industry was being put at risk by recent breaches in handling so-called specific risk material (SRM).
SRM are those parts of the animal, such as the vertebral column (VC), deemed “most risky” and so need to be removed from carcases to protect consumers from any potential BSE risk from food. Between 1 March and 31 August, seven cutting plants in Britain “have been identified as having breached rules on the removal and disposal of SRM vertebral column,” the FSA said. In one of the seven cases, the breach “is likely to have resulted in consumer exposure” to SRM in the UK and Spain, it added.
The plant responsible for this breach was a combined slaughterhouse and cutting plant in the UK, “which despatched cuts of meat containing SRM VC to four premises in Spain and to a small chain of butchers in the UK over a period of 22 months”, the FSA report said. “The UK butchers were supplied with nearly 2,000 individual bone-in cuts, which will have been sold to restaurants or direct to the public.”
The risk to human health from the breaches was “extremely low”, the FSA said, but warned “the identified breaches pose reputational risks for the FSA and for the UK meat industry nd continuation of such breaches could impact on consumer and trade confidence in UK meat”.
Eblex head of trade development Peter Hardwick said any breach of controls needed to be taken seriously, but added the FSA considered the risk from BSE negligible, as could be seen from its recent decision to cease routine testing of cattle aged over 72 months. “The significance of these breaches, as well as the risk associated with these materials, needs to be seen in this context, and our export markets should be reassured by this.”
Five of the plants found to be in breach had been referred for investigation with a view to prosecution, the FSA said. Meat trade bodies, including the Assocation of Independent Meat suppliers and the British Meat Processors Association, said the protection of public health was paramount and the industry would support “proportionate and risk-based” efforts to clamp down on breaches. “We want to state clearly that we fully support risk-based, proportionate FSA action in dealing with non-compliances and breaches,” they added. “For our part, we will continue to urge our members in the strongest terms to ensure that they meet the requirements of TSE controls, including SRM controls, at all times.”
The revelations come as producers this week hailed a breakthrough in EU/US trade relations, which lifts a ban on EU beef imports imposed in the wake of the BSE crisis of the 1990s and will open the door for EU beef to be exported to the US for the first time in more than 15 years.
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