The market value for the Quality Standard Mark (QSM) scheme was revealed at the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) 2017 conference in Leeds.
Responding to a question in a debate around eating quality at the conference, AHDB’s strategy director for Beef & Lamb, Laura Ryan, revealed that the levy payer’s calculation for the market value of the QSM scheme was around £300 million.
Ryan was speaking during a panel discussion at the end of AIMS’s annual conference, which included Food Standards Agency (FSA) chief executive, Jason Feeney and representatives from the NSA, AHDB, Irish Farmers Journal, Norwich Business School, Association of Labour Providers and the NFU.
She said: “AHDB has calculated that the QSM product sold after leaving slaughter is almost £300 million.”
AIMS understands that these figures are arrived at by looking at product marked QSM at point of sale leaving slaughter and sold on the open market, that going for export, product sold as QSM by catering butchers, box sales and high street retailers.
The QSM scheme is underpinned by AIMS’s own Assured Meat Processing Standard (AMPS) when product is Farm Assured, fully traceable using an assured chain and meets the scheme’s criteria. Red Tractor also underpins AMPS.
Head of policy at AIMS, Norman Bagley said: “Our AMPS scheme offers the SME sector an alternative option in an increasingly diverse market.”
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.
