2 CRAFTBUTCHER l MAY 2018
INDUSTRY NEWS
CONSTRUCTIVE TALKS ON THE FUTURE OF SMALL
SLAUGHTERHOUSES William Lloyd Williams
COMMENT
In the wake of President John Mettrick’s appearance on BBC1’s Countryfile William Lloyd Williams achieves breakthrough and opens a new front and talks with top Food Standards Agency personnel to save small slaughterhouses. Followed by a low key but valuable ‘how it is’ conversation between member Matthew Alden and the Agency’s CEO Jason Feeney and Chief Operations Officer Colin Sullivan while visiting the NFMFT stand at Foodex - the message continues. And paves the way, ahead of John Mettrick’s participation at the Sustainable Food Trust conference and successful collaboration on DEFRA’s ‘Health and Harmony’ consultation. Demonstrating that hard work, perseverance and working together yields results. Which is something that ALL competitors and winners Allan Bennett, Michael Kennedy and nineteen-year- old Conor Reynolds in the National Meat Products and Premier Young Butcher competitions appreciate. And on its 130th anniversary the NFMFT and national craſt butchers celebrate! n
ROGER KELSEY Editor
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MBE, the NFMFT slaughtering representative, has opened a new front in the battle to save small slaughterhouses. In April he instigated a round of informal talks with senior officials from the Food Standards Agency.
practices. He was able to give many actual examples from personal experience and also from talking to other slaughtering members.
William and Richard were William Lloyd Williams MBE Te aim was to build on the
excellent work already started by President John Mettrick and the recent report from the Sustainable Food Trust as featured in a recent edition of BBC1's Countryfile and previously reported in Craſt Butcher.
William, accompanied by
Technical Manager Richard Stevenson, travelled to London and had pre-arranged meetings with the six most senior FSA officials headed by Jason Feeney the Chief Executive. Te all-day talks were friendly and constructive and covered a lot of ground.
William was able to
forcibly put the case that low throughput operators were closing in record numbers primarily because of over- burdensome regulatory
Later in the month Jason Feeney and Colin Sullivan (FSA Chief Operating Officer) visited the Federation stand at Foodex and met with Roger Kelsey, and Federation member Matthew Alden from Oxford.
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able to propose a number of ideas and possible solutions that would move the current inspection regime towards a more risk-based and proportionate system. Topics discussed included ante & post-mortem inspections, audits, paperwork/admin and general working relationships between operators and inspectors. Also discussed were animal welfare/CCTV, over thirty month/SRM issues, as well as touching on subjects such as disposal costs, hides & skins and over- lenient sentences for illegal slaughterers.
William said: “I feel we have
made a great start but there is still a lot of work to do. We were very well received by the Agency staff who seemed to
enjoy the experience of feedback from real craſt butchers which made a change from large food conglomerates and multiple retailers. Obviously, we will be following up these initial discussions as urgently as possible.”
In a follow up message aſter
the meeting the FSA Head of Veterinary Services, Jose Gomez-Luengo said: “Tank you for taking the time to come and meet us yesterday to discuss your concerns and explore alternative ways of doing things at small slaughterhouses It was clear that you had
a number of ideas, some of which may be implemented relatively soon while others are longer term proposals that might require a change in legislation.
As agreed, you will be
identifying a shortlist of key priorities that you would like us to look at and that we can discuss further.”
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