Sides are drawn in argument over meat inspection regime

The public sector union Unison appears to be on a collision course with the government over a new system to ensure the safety of meat from primary processing plants, which comes into force next year.

New European food hygiene legislation will require all plants to adopt Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) procedures from January. But Unison, which has more than 1,000 members in the meat industry, has warned the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) that where HACCP has already been adopted, it has failed to prevent contaminated meat from getting as far as the meat inspectors.

In a Unison survey, 92% of inspectors said that HACCP had made no impact on the quality of product presented at their plant and 78% said they were still unofficially expected to carry out trimming in order that carcasses could be stamped fit for human consumption rather than be returned to operators.

"It's obvious that HACCP is not working," said Ben Priestley, Unison national officer.

But a spokesman for the MHS insisted HACCP was the best way of protecting consumers. From next year the inspectors' role would change from one of supervising meat cutting to auditing a plant's risk assessment procedure, he said. "The whole thrust of the new regulations is to put responsibility for producing good quality fresh meat firmly on the plant operators, rather than the MHS."

The MHS was still waiting to see the full Unison survey, he added, but stressed that inspectors should not be trimming meat.

Alick Simmons, FSA veterinary director, told the British Meat Processors Association recently that existing regulations were too prescriptive.