Meat & Livestock Commercial Services Ltd (MLCSL) has expressed its surprise at the Welsh red meat industry’s recent comments calling for an automated system for carcase grading.
“It came as a surprise to read in the press about a meeting of Welsh industry representatives declaring that there were significant problems with the existing system, variations in assessment and inconsistent grading. This doesn’t tally with our records,” MLCSL chairman, John Cross.
Cross continues: “There are a significant number of checks and cross-checks in place to ensure that there is consistency in the grading by the inspectors so we have a level playing field and reliable carcase classification. This is something that has been established over many years and there is no better system available.
“We would welcome discussions with any processor, or groups of industry representatives, who feel their current grading inspections are not up to scratch. It is essential we maintain high standards for all of those in the supply chain, but we believe that moves towards an automated system, particularly on sheep classification, will incur significant expense and could lead to a decline in the reliability of classification."
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.
