Government urged to help small abattoirs
The Sustainable Food Trust and the Campaign for Local Abattoirs are calling for the assistance of MPs and Peers in helping to ensure the survival of the local meat sector.
In a Parliamentary briefing paper, the two groups have emphasised their views that small abattoirs are essential for the marketing of local meat from farms with high welfare and environmental standards, but numbers continue to decline.
John Mettrick, NCB president, explains small abattoirs are being hit especially hard.
The abattoirs are said to be unable to compete due to bureaucracy, excessive regulation, increasing costs and falling income, as well as new capital expenditure requirements.
Many local meat producers, whether organic, pasture-fed, rare breed, free-range or heritage breed will depend on small abattoirs.
This is because large abattoirs are generally not able to slaughter animals for individual producers and return both carcases and offal to them for sale through farm shops, independent butchers and other local outlets.
A third of the smallest abattoirs (those slaughtering less than 1,000 livestock units a year) closed between 2007 and 2017. Six more have closed this year, taking the number to 57.
Including the 49 abattoirs slaughtering up to 5,000 livestock units annually, many of which also serve local meat producers, there are now only about 100 abattoirs to which local meat producers can turn.
Parts of the country are already without a local abattoir and if the decline is allowed to continue, the two groups fear that the supply of local, fully traceable meat will dry up.
John Mettrick, president of National Craft Butchers, said: “All sectors of the red meat industry have been under pressure recently, but small abattoirs are being hit especially hard by plummeting prices for hides and skins, rapidly increasing waste disposal costs and new capital investment requirements for which there is no grant aid in the UK except in Wales.”
Richard Young, Sustainable Food Trust policy director, added: “This is a completely unnecessary tragedy. Producers who have adopted less intensive production methods that meet the increasing public demand for high welfare local meat, are having to take their animals further and further to get them slaughtered.
“This is increasing costs, reducing welfare and causing more vehicle emissions than necessary. There comes a point when this is no longer economically viable.”
The Welsh Government has made specific funding available for its 15 small abattoirs, and the groups are calling on the Government to do the same for small abattoirs elsewhere in the UK.
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