Meat processors face challenging times ahead with public health, overseas competition and environmental issues having an increasingly important impact on what they do, warned the director of the British Meat Processing Association.
Public health was set to become significantly more important to meat processors, said Maurice McCartney. Problems such as obesity, heart disease and other health issues would increase pressure to reduce salt and fat, and remove nitrates and nitrites in meat products, he added. “This whole public health thing is going to get bigger and bigger,” he predicted. “We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg yet.”
Other issues such as traffic light labelling, ingredient labelling of meat products and the use of added water, were also set rise up the political agenda, he predicted.
In addition, proposals coming from Brussels to introduce animal welfare labelling on meat products was also causing the industry some concern, he added. “We have strong welfare legislation, which we welcome,” said McCartney. “But our view here [on labelling] is that it is best left to the market.”
McCartney was critical of the absence of government policy for ensuring a sustainable UK meat supply chain. “Government seems to feel happy about exporting industry, but at the moment there is not a lot we can do about that,” he lamented.
On the logistics front, McCartney warned that increasing traffic congestion could eventually lead to complete gridlock across the UK’s road network. He said this would have devastating consequences for the food supply chain dependent upon ‘just-in-time’ road haulage deliveries.
But it was not all doom and gloom, he said. Moves towards greater self-regulation, rather than the imposition of prescriptive legislation, offered meat processors more autonomy, said McCartney. “So, the message is: look guys, you are going to have more opportunity to control your destiny a bit more; to control the environment you work in. But you’ve got to deliver - you must do your HACCP properly. You mustn’t screw up on things, because if you do they’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.”
*Maurice McCartney is presenting a paper titled: Strategic challenges for the cured meat sector - the legislative and government policy environment at a Campden & ChorleyWood Food Research Association seminar on November 13. http://www.campden,co.uk/training/conferences.htm