Approval of meat plants under new EU food hygiene regulations

Thursday 15 December 2005

This paper provides information on: action by the Food Standards Agency to help meat plants prepare for approval assessments under new legislation in 2006, the current standards in these plants, and the likelihood that at least a small number of these plants will close.

The Board is asked to note that:

• meat plants that comply fully with the current regulations should have little difficulty in gaining approval under new regulations in 2006. However, the Agency's appraisal visits have confirmed that there are a number of plants where building structure has deteriorated over the years, or where plant layout needs improving to cope with increasing levels of throughput.
• the Agency is doing everything it can to help plants gain approval under the new regulations in 2006, through free appraisal visits to assess standards well in advance of the new regulations and by working with agriculture departments across the UK to ensure operators have access to all possible sources of help and advice and to inform the strategic assessment of the industry by those departments. Ultimately, the health of the meat industry is a matter for agriculture departments, not the FSA.
• while the results of the appraisal visits should not be used to predict a 'likely' number of plant closures, closures will be inevitable unless significant progress is made in those plants identified as having major compliance problems at the appraisal visits.