Beef back on the menu
Beef from cattle aged over thirty months (OTM) could be back on the menu in November as the decade-long ban on OTM beef is replaced by a system allowing older carcases into the food chain as long as tests prove that they are BSE-free.
UK-produced OTM beef has been banned from the human food chain since 1996 as part of a raft of measures to tackle BSE.
Assuming ministers follow advice from the Food Standards Agency, which says it is satisfied that a robust BSE testing system has been developed, OTM beef will be back on the menu in a matter of weeks, said the Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC).
The export-ban is also likely to be lifted early next year.
The rule change could potentially reduce the percentage of imported beef consumed in the UK from 40% to 15%, as home-produced fresh, frozen and processed OTM beef displaces product from overseas, said MLC economics manager, beef, Duncan Sinclair.
He added: “We estimate that in the first year after the regulations come in, an additional 185,000t of beef from OTM animals will enter the food chain, which represents a 25% rise in the supply of home-produced beef.”
It was too early to predict what prices this would command, he said. “There are so many factors, including the quality issue. Some producers are even holding back younger cattle from slaughter as they believe they will get a better price for OTM beef. It all depends on the rate of import substitution and volumes of prime under thirty month (UTM) beef around at the time of the rule change.”
In the first few weeks after OTM beef was allowed into the food chain, the OTM compensation scheme would remain in place, he added. “The scheme will probably continue until mid-December when a new compensation scheme for disposing of older cattle [born before 1996] is in place. We predict that in the early weeks, about 40% of OTM cattle, the poorer quality ones, will go through the OTM scheme, and 60% into the food chain.”
The additional volume handled by UK plants would also help the industry remain competitive, as throughput would increase, while overheads probably wouldn’t, he said.
Romford Wholesale Meats md Graham Heffer said the return of OTM beef was great news for the UK meat industry. He said: “We were large processors and exporters of OTM beef prior to the 1996 ban. It will take time, but I’ve had more calls from old export customers than UK ones about this in recent weeks, which is very encouraging. They just want to know when it’s back on the menu.” He added: “By having these animals available, we will be able to reduce our costs, by increasing volume by 25% without really increasing overheads.”
Under the scheme, companies wishing to handle OTM meat will have to produce documents to show that they have controls in place to segregate OTM and UTM product; that they have been trained to collect brain samples of OTM animals for testing; and that they have traceability systems to link samples with relevant carcases. They will also have to be formally inspected by the Meat Hygiene Service.
So far, more than 100 abattoirs have registered to handle OTM meat, which was “extremely encouraging”, said Sinclair.
MLC marketing manager Richard Lowe said he was confident that consumers would welcome OTM beef, and that there was no need to label it separately, as this would arouse suspicions that there was something wrong with it. He said: “Beef is beef. All we’re doing is replacing one control measure [the OTM rule] with another [individual testing of carcases for BSE before releasing them into the food chain].”
