Meat processors’ fury over ‘divisive and misleading’ FSA claims

THE latest dispute between the Food Standards Agency and the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers broke out this week following the publication by the FSA of a number of meat plants that gave “cause for concern”.

Three of the eight plants listed on the FSA website under this category are based in Scotland – John Scott Meats, Basildene Ltd and Alsihia Ltd.

The FSA’s assessment is based on a number of factors including hygienic production, environmental production and concerns over the process within a meat processing plant.

A spokesman for SAMW, whose membership covers most of the meat processing plants in Scotland, said they had no issue with openness or keeping the public informed.

But they described the listing on the website as “shoddy and provocative” as well as being extremely unprofessional.

Both organisations were at pains to point out that the listing and the description of “cause for concern” did not relate to the quality of the meat.

The FSA stated that if there were any risk to public health, it had legal powers to stop production immediately but SAMW said the fact the meat from these plants remained fit for human consumption was not made clear in the web listing.

“The real fact is that these plants have been asked to make improvements,” it said. “The language used by FSA, however, is dramatic, divisive and misleading, leading many in the industry to assume this is, at best, a botched attempt at publishing league tables and at worst a deliberate act of aggression against a food industry which has been critical of the agency’s excessive cost base.”

Commenting specifically on the case of John Scott Meats, who are members of SAMW, the spokesman said the plant was inspected four months ago. Since then the required improvements had been promptly carried out as was normal practice in response to any such FSA audit request.

“However, FSA has not revisited the plant for an updated audit since then,” it said. “In addition, the plant concerned only discovered it was on the ‘cause for concern’ list last week.”

The FSA described the listing as encouraging operators to “raise their game.” The “cause for concern” label was a tool which enabled it to focus enforcement action where it was needed, it said.