UK processors blast FSA over desinewed meat moratorium
Cattle, sheep and goat-produced DSM, which is manufactured using a low pressure technique to remove meat from animal bones, will no longer be made in the UK under the EC imposed moratorium. It may still be produced from poultry and pig bones, but from the end of May it must specifically labeled as Mechanically Separated Meat (MSM) and can no longer count towards the meat content of a product.
Despite the ruling, both the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the EC have reiterated that consumption of DSM produced using cattle, sheep and goat bones does not present a health risk.
The re-classification will bring the UK in line with European Union (EU) single market legislation.
According to the BMPA, the UK’s decision to change its guidance on DSM will have “enormous implications for producers of this product, for food manufacturers and for some consumers.”
Market disruption
“While acceding to the Commissions demands, the Government and we hold that current practice in the UK is lawful. This product is not MSM. It is meat, and there are no food safety concerns in its usage,” said BMPA director Stephen Rossides.
“This is a criminal waste of a valuable product at a time of a shortage of proteins, and when we are being urged to reduce food wastage. Common sense has gone out of the window.”
According to the BMPA, which represents the UK meat industry, firms food products will be reformulated and relabeled at an additional cost – increasing the cost for the consumer.
The cost of the ruling could reach £200m, according to the BMPA.
“The market implications of having to bow down to the Commission are huge. We look to the UK Government to continue to defend the UK’s legal interpretation and established practice. All this has happened at break-neck speed,” added Rossides.
“The industry must be given more time to adjust to any change in requirements and market circumstances in a controlled and properly managed way in order to minimise market disruption and financial damage.”
Public health concern
“The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is clear that there is no evidence of any risk to human health from eating meat produced from the low-pressure DSM technique. There is no greater risk from eating this sort of produce than any other piece of meat or meat product,” said a FSA statement.
“The European Commission has informed us today they do not consider this to be an identified public health concern.”
“However, the European Commission has decided that DSM does not comply with European Union single market legislation and has therefore required the UK to impose a moratorium on producing DSM from the bones of cattle, sheep and goats by the end of April,” the FSA added.
