The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) has launched the Assured Meat Processing Standard (AMPS), which will become United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) approved to EN45011.
The standard will cover beef, lamb, pork and poultry and AIMS will be working with all sectors in the supply chain to promote the new standard.
According to the association a number of meat businesses across the supply chain have already signed up to progress trial audits.
AIMS, whose policy director is Norman Bagley, has a track record of plant assurance schemes and in collaboration with Assured British Meats (ABM) it has successfully launched the ABM processor standard for the SME sector.
This subsequently became harmonized within the Red Tractor family and over the years resulted in significant changes, which has seen some businesses requesting an alternative option to successfully service their customer base.
AHDB Beef and Lamb has approved AMPS for use in the Quality Standard Mark (QSM) scheme when product is Farm Assured, fully traceable using an assured chain and meets scheme criteria.
AIMS is said to be looking forward to helping AHDB further to develop the QSM which focuses on both provenance and meat eating quality.
The association will also be approaching the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) which manages the pork QSM with a view to AMPS being accepted up to the cutting and mince level of production in order to foster more activity between SMEs and larger companies in what is becoming an increasingly diverse market. Poultry also offers a significant opportunity to further assurance through the independent sector.
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
