SAMW Seminar 2016

Good turn out at just under 70 industry members. President Alan McNaughton addressed the meeting saying that despite all the rhetoric to simplify and reduce regulation nothing much ever seems to change for the better.

“Over regulation is bad enough but when it is bad regulation that is even worse but the worst of all is bad implementation of bad regulation. The classic example is the regulations on the welfare of animals at the time of killing or Watoc as it is called.

“This was an EU regulation made in 2009 to revamp the welfare qualification of abattoir staff and it fell to Scottish Government to implement it. SAMW has spent more than three years trying to influence sensible implementation but we still ended up with a costly system.

“It is a system that is difficult to understand, illogical in many respects and at its worse actually insulting to many of our staff who have vast experience and competence in handling animals.

“The government's implementation has been a bureaucratic nightmare partly due to lack of understanding of the practicalities and also because of the slavish adherence to the words of EU text and lack of leadership. It was a situation calling out for a practical and sensible solution which improved only when FSS stepped in to sort out the actual issue of Certificates of Competence (COC ).

“Even though that was a great help there is still confusion about a number of aspects several months into the process. Grandfather rights are part of that. It is only going to become apparent once all the training starts to go ahead over the next three, six, eight, twelve months. We need this message to get clearly back to Scottish Government. There is a lot more discussion to be had.

“The message is that we need a bit more emphathy and understanding from Scottish Government if the red meat industry is to make its optimum contribution to the aspirations to grow Scotland's food and drink sector.nation is to succeed.

“Beef 20/20 was a welcome initiative from Scottish Government however we are concerned that it has lost a little bit of impetus recently and delivering the perceived benefits to the livestock and meat sector must be prioritised soon.”

Turning to Food Standards Scotland (FSS) the new regulator has made a good steady start and the Association values the inclusive partnership working which it has adopted. In particular the new charging system which was produced jointly better than the old one we had with FSA however there are still some invoicing issues to resolve.

“There is one matter that has caused some difficulties at plant level and it is communication between the veterinarian and plant management. The saving grace is that most of these issues can be resolved quickly. So much for officialdom, there are many other regulatory issues just over the horizon.

“These include Ecoli, cadmium and lead levels in offal, the use of chlorates and veterinarian residue just to need some. All these require the Association to keep a watchful eye and work with our partners to make sure that we get systems that work for the industry.”

Amanda Brown, Strategic Insight Director in Scotland for Kantar Worldpanel gave a presentation on shopping figures and trends.

The information is formed from 30,000 households in GB (3000 in Scotland) who scan every purchase and Kantar study shopper behaviour. Kantar specialise in tracking and quantifying behaviour across GB to find out who is buying what and for what reason.

Christmas 2015

Value of sales down 0.2%. (Scotland 0.5% down). Aldi, Lidl, Iceland and premium retailers like Waitrose did better. In Scotland Coop did well too. Average basket value down 1.8% due to cheaper poultry and vegetable prices. 23rd December was the busiest day and Lidl was the fastest growing retailer in GB. They grew both shopper numbers and value of sales.

“The only constant in life is that everything is changing” quote Amanda Hocking. Aging but more wealthy population who are time rich. Smaller households, 1 in 3 babies born in UK are now expected to live to 100. Health becoming more important as reason for choice. Proportion of expenditure on food and drink is declining.

Baskets are now 1.7% cheaper year on year but they are not spending the savings on food and drink. Online shopping in Scotland is increasing but lagging behind rest of GB.

Discounters

Alfi, Lidl now account for 12.2% of goal spend. Aldi and Lidl combined almost same share as Morrisons. Lidl are doing marginally better than Aldi in Scotland. Much of growth has come as a result of store openings. More involved in Scottish products and even Scottish sponsorships. Lidl have trialled a shopper loyalty card in Scotland.

Discounter share is lagging behind European trend. Germany 27%, Poland 26%, Ireland 18%, Spain 17% and Italy 14%.

Aldi is north focussed and more aligned with ASDA. Aldi attracting more family shoppers. Lidl offer larger packs. Fresh meat – Lidl ahead of Aldi but both important.

Butchers 10%. Fresh meat trend towards Lidl and Aldi, away from Big Four. Butchers penetration down from 17% to 16% over last four years.

Conclusion change is all around us, think about shoppers and changing market place.

Ian McWatt, Food Standards Scotland, Senior Manager of management team.

Gave an overview of the first year of FSS and firstly discussed New Charging System. The cost of working beyond the Business Agreement have been extremely transparent. The process has been simplified to strip out back office costs. This was a key principle for FSS because MHS and FSA overheads have always attracted criticism.

FSS employ two people in Aberdeen do the charging, this is significantly different and impacts on the charge out rates. Lack of use of FSS staff is still a concern because industry are paying for but not using resources. IM estimated that the industry has currently paid between £30000 and £40000 and not used FSS. He said that there is quite an appetite in certain plants to agree a buffer, agree to pay for employees to sit on their hands. The Business Agreement needs to more accurately cover what is actually needed. Some plants underestimate resources in the expectation that FSS can meet demand at short notice – this may not continue as they re-deploy OVs and MHIs.

Meat Inspection costs have dropped from £94m to £50m. Some of this will be to the removal of some of the SRM legislation. Now in Scotland the bill to meat plants is around £3m, a lot less expensive than it has ever been.

In Australia and New Zealand industry pays 100% of costs. Ian estimates that is Scotland this year £50000 to £60,000 will be paid annually for services not used.

Areas to consider for the charging system:- FSS are talking to trade unions about reviewing terms and conditions for FSS staff. If inspectors are not required they could be diverted into other areas such as shellfish and local authority controls. Do plants really need to start before 6.30am because there is an early start charge. Some plants choose to build in extra costs such as early start allowance, contractual overtime and incur idle time even though they seldom use it.

Ian McWatt said that he worked closely with SAMW to minimise charges. He was willing to strip out admin if it was not required.

Transitional relief means no increase in charges to those plants who would have stayed on FSA system. Only 2 years of funding remains and yet there is no evidence of efforts to reduce inefficiencies. He appealed to all FBO to look at the charging system and said that he would be pulling the working group together again in 2016 to see if the system is working well.

Certificates of Competence (COCs) and Grandfather rights

The deadline for applications of COCs was 8th December and these are being processed. FSS has been audited as an SQA centre. Plants will be billed for the £25 registration fee at SQA. Not entering the correct codes is creating problems in applications. There is a language issue, to be an animal welfare officer is not the same as an animal handler. Legislation requires animal handlers to have COCs. Grandfather rights will prevail where individuals were registered with FSA in 2012. Those not on that lest will require a COC.

FSS in the process of obtaining FDQ centre approval to offer certification less expensively.

A completely new IT system has been designed and constructed for FSS between August and April 2015. There have been problems with invoicing, IM apologised for this.

Contamination

Good news story here in that contamination trend is down but for first time they have recorded an Ecoli O157 problem with Scottish venison. Pork contamination however is higher than the nationally accepted rate.

Ante Mortem inspection.

Meeting was reminded that animals not being ante Mortem inspection will me binned. There is no flexibility around that. FSS feel that loss of carcase is sufficient penalty.

Future

Areas to consider:-

Food crime cost UK £11bn. per annum so Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit has been created. Industry should share information. Tackle fraud and illegal slaughter. It is important to protect Scotland Plc because Scotland markets itself on the quality label.

Full CCTV coverage in all areas of live animal handling. All areas of live animal handling in Scotland will be covered. Important that the industry has nothing to hide.

Consumer assurance and protection of public health are non – negotiable, regardless of the preferred option. Non compliant business should pay for that non-compliance.

FSS consider that they have cut their costs as far as they can possibly go.

Actions:

Need to understand current Official Controls requirements for meat and why they are different to other Official Controls and what risk from meat that are distinct? Meat controls are very detailed and goes down to such a level that there is very little flexibility.

Need to look at meat delivery models in other EU companies.

“There is a lot that we have achieved, there is a lot that we are doing currently and there is a lot that I would like to do but the key take home message is that we continue to work in partnership.”