ZM0307: Audit of sheep and goat products for potential BSE infectivity

Study Duration: March 2003 to August 2003

Contractor: Det Norske Veritas Consulting

In part, this study is in response to recommendations from the Core Stakeholder Group on BSE in Sheep:

R1) Future risk advice from the Agency should include information on the theoretical risk from sheep and goat dairy products;

R2) The Agency, with other Government departments, should commission a full audit of the uses of sheep and goat products in food and non-food products that could be infected, if the risk exists. In light of the above, this study should achieve the following three aims.

• Focus on sheep and goat products, so that if BSE is found in sheep and/or goats, the 'at risk' products are identified.
• Review current meat and processed sheep and goat products available in relation to their potential quantities and distribution.
• Review the current production and utilisation of dairy products from sheep and goats milk.

The first task will be an audit of the uses of sheep and goat products in food. This will attempt to document all known uses and give some indication of scale of production and use. This would be quantified so far as the available data will allow, possibly in terms of production categories. This will draw on knowledge within Government departments and a literature review. A similar exercise will be conducted for goat meat, although the goat meat industry in the UK is much smaller than for sheep and may be less well characterised. UK goat farming will be described with numbers of animals and uses for meat and other products. Information on BSE in sheep will be assessed in relation to its relevance to goats. Assuming the comparison with sheep is considered valid, models applied to sheep will be adapted for the UK goat population to provide some indications of the potential risk from BSE in goats.The audit will also, so far as possible, identify quantities of imported sheep and goat meat and dairy products, and review how these complement the home production.

The second task addresses the issue of whether sheep milk will be contaminated in the event of BSE being found in the national flock is an area of perhaps even greater contention than meat products. There is currently no evidence that BSE is transmitted via cow’s milk, although experiments are currently ongoing to further investigate the possibility. This study will seek to describe the quantities of sheep and goat milk produced and the processing activities including the production of cheese, yoghurt, ice cream and butter.