The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published its six month review for 2 Sisters, which is also opening its doors to the public to promote the poultry industry.
This comes following the news in September 2017, where workers at 2 Sisters had allegedly tampered with slaughter dates to extend its meat’s shelf life. It was also reported that food had fallen on the floor, been picked up and put back on the production line.
Since then, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) committee has composed a report, highlighting progress in the formulation of 2 Sisters Intelligence Sharing Group.
The intelligence group reviews all audit results including feedback from company ‘mystery workers’, whistleblowing schemes and regulatory inspection results.
There has also been an installation and upgrade of CCTV cameras in which all sites will have live monitoring and all footage will be retained for 180 days. Mandatory CCTV in slaughterhouses came into effect on 4th May 2018 under animal welfare legislation.
Animal welfare legislation will be meeting the British Poultry Council (BPC) to agree the next steps on the development of an industry-wide protocol on the deployment of CCTV across all cutting plants.
Open day for the public
In another step forward, 2 Sisters Food Group’s associated farms throughout the UK are opening their doors and inviting the public to get a glimpse of how a real poultry farm operates.
Organised by Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF), the open day hopes to offer a chance for people to discover farming at first hand, and see for themselves how their food is produced.
Andrew Gibson, agriculture manager for 2 Sisters, said: “We take the birds’ welfare extremely seriously and this farm is a great showcase to see how a poultry farm works.
“Viewing platforms are fairly rare, so although we’re keen to share the story of how we farm chicken, the people on the farm are getting a glimpse of something that most of the general public wouldn’t get to see first-hand.
“We’re really grateful to our farmer, Guy Davies, who masterminded the installation of the viewing platform and does a fantastic job helping to promote the poultry industry.”
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.
