AHDB has said it will no longer provide its annual funding into Red Tractor as it was now a ‘financially established and self-sustaining’ body’.

The levy body said it agreed to put levy funding into Red Tractor following an industry consultation in 2008, which backed the development of a comprehensive food quality assurance scheme to consolidate farm audits and the development of a single label as the manifestation of trusted production standards.

It comes as levy payers raise concerns around grain imports and assurance and whether the controls in place for imported grain provide the same levels of assurance.

This decision has taken effect from this financial year however Red Tractor has been informed future funding could be provided if specific projects were identified that would be to the benefit of levy payers.

AHDB chair Nicholas Saphir said: “It remains AHDB’s clear position that farm assurance is necessary and important to farming success, as a consumer benchmark, or ‘kite mark’, denoting safety, quality and provenance and/or in helping farmers achieve premium prices where food is produced to particular standards which customers and consumers attach additional value.

“Red Tractor is now well established and it no longer requires AHDB’s basic annual financial support,” he said.

By Alex Black / Farmers Guardian

The trade deal between UK and Australia has been signed – but farmers have called it a “one-sided deal”.

The deal was signed in a virtual ceremony by International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan last night (December 16) and will now be scrutinised by Parliament.

Ms Trevelyan said: “Our UK-Australia trade deal is a landmark moment in the historic and vital relationship between our two commonwealth nations.

“This agreement is tailored to the UK’s strengths, and delivers for businesses, families, and consumers in every part of the UK – helping us to level up. We will continue to work together in addressing shared challenges in global trade, climate change and technological changes in the years ahead.

“Today we demonstrate what the UK can achieve as an agile, independent sovereign trading nation.

“This is just the start as we get on the front foot and seize the seismic opportunities that await us on the world stage.”

The agreement gives UK firms guaranteed access to bid for an additional £10 billion worth of Australian public sector contracts per year and allows 18-35-year-olds to work and travel in Australia for up to three years at a time, removing previous visa conditions.

However, NFU President Minette Batters said: “As we feared following the agreement in principle, there appears to be extremely little in this deal to benefit British farmers.

“We will analyse the detail in full but on the face of it, this is a one-sided deal.

by Lisa Young / South West Farmer

Russia resumed the import of beef and pork from 12 Brazilian units in late November 2021, Brazil’s health security regulator reported.

Most of the restrictions on Brazilian beef and pork had been in place since 2017. The reason was related to allegations of ractopamine usage for animal feeding, which Brazilian groups in the meat industry denied.

In October 2021, Russia had already allowed the resuming of beef imports from 3 major Brazilian exporters. The new release, late November, applied to another 12 facilities, 9 for pork and 3 for beef.

The Russian department Rosselkhoznadzor did not reveal which units received the new status. The Russian watchdog on sanitary topics stated, “Rosselkhoznadzor continues to work on expanding the list of Brazilian producers certified to supply beef and pork to Russia.”

The announcement comes after Brazilian Agriculture minister Tereza Cristina met in the Russian capital Moscow with Sergey Dankvert, the head of Rosselkhoznadzor. During the meeting, he also guaranteed the realisation of an inspection visit to Brazil in the 1st quarter of 2022, aimed at qualifying new Brazilian meatpacking plants for exports.

The current tariff by the Russians is 15% on imports until 530,000 tonnes of Brazilian meat. That is part of Moscow’s measures, aiming to stabilise domestic inflation, which has never been so high in the last 5 years.

Daniel Azevedo / Pig Progress

(Sharecast News) – Food packaging business Hilton Food Group said on Friday that it has agreed to acquire smoked salmon producer Dutch Seafood Company as part of an effort to expand its presence in a growing protein category and enter the US, a new geography for the firm.

In order to fund the bulk of the €90.0m acquisition, Hilton Food launched an equity placing aimed at raising approximately £75.0m, while the balance will be funded through a committed acquisition bridge facility.
A portion of the funds will also be used to partially refinance Hilton’s previously announced acquisition of Fairfax Meadow.
While the FTSE 250-listed group did not disclose the total number of shares being placed as part of the fundraiser, the figure was expected to represent approximately 8% of the company’s existing issued share capital.

Hilton anticipates the acquisition of Dutch Seafood Company, which trades under the name Foppen, will be accretive to earnings per share in the first twelve months for Hilton while ensuring net leverage remains below 2.0x.

Chief executive Philip Heffer said: “The acquisition of Foppen is an exceptional opportunity for Hilton and another step towards our goal of becoming the global protein partner of choice. More and more consumers around the world are seeking affordable, high-quality, and sustainable protein, and this acquisition will help Hilton take our offer into new markets and to new global customers for the first time.

Sharecast News / London South East

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Argentina will loosen export restrictions on beef that were put in place in a bid to curtail inflation and had been panned by meatpackers, the government said on Thursday after a meeting with industry groups.

Argentina’s inflation hovers around an eye-watering 50% a year, while the poverty rate sits at 40%, factors that had pressured center-left President Alberto Fernandez to try to contain rising food prices by curbing beef exports.

Restrictions will remain in place, however, on the most consumed cuts in Argentina, in a bid to prevent those prices from rising.

By Maximilian Heath / Reuters

CHICAGO, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Tyson Foods Inc plans to spend more than $1.3 billion to increase automation in meat plants over the next three years, Chief Executive Donnie King said on Thursday, as a U.S. labour shortage has limited production while demand is booming.

Meat processors have been unable to find enough workers for the past two years due to the tight labour market and health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company will increasingly use machines, instead of people, to debone chicken, one of its most labour-intensive jobs and a position with high turnover, said David Bray, group president of Tyson’s poultry division. A capital investment of $500 million in the area through fiscal year 2024 will generate labour savings equal to more than 2,000 jobs, he said.

Profitability in Tyson’s chicken unit has declined partly due to the labour shortage and because processing plants are operating below full capacity, Bray said.

“We are not servicing our customers to the degree that they expect us to,” Bray said.

Reuters 

SAO PAULO, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Brazilian food processor BRF SA plans to start producing meat in China as part of an aggressive growth plan that could more than double annual net sales by 2030, executives said during a company presentation on Wednesday.

BRF mainly serves the Chinese market via exports.

But as China rebuilt its pork herd and the pandemic rattled global logistics, local presence, as BRF has had for years in the Middle East, will be paramount.

“To be a much more relevant player in China we need to increase local production,” Patricio Rohner, BRF’s vice-president of international markets, told reporters after the presentation.

He said BRF already operates in China through local partnerships in sales and distribution.

BRF does not rule out acquisitions in China, but Rohner personally prefers building the company’s own factory there. “When you buy a rival, a local producer, they don’t have the portfolio that the younger consumers need.”

AHDB Pork’s weekly pig prices, slaughter data and commentary for Great Britain.

In the week ended 4 December, the EU-spec SPP fell again, by 0.72p, to 142.84p/kg. This puts the measure 8.2p below where it was at the same time last year, meanwhile feed prices have strengthened significantly, damaging profitability.

Estimated slaughter for the week was 193,800 head. This was higher than last week’s figure by around 7,900 head, but 3,700 head lower than during the equivalent week last year. Reports suggest there was a further increase in the number of abattoirs undertaking a Saturday kill, with Christmas throughputs now well under way.

The average carcase weight fell slightly compared to the previous week, to 91.88kg.

by AHDB

Businessman Larry Goodman has set up a supervisory board over his beef-to-property empire, putting his eldest son in a key succession position. The move puts order over the long-term direction of the Goodman family’s interests.

Mr Goodman (84) has become chairman of the supervisory board over the family’s ABP Food Group and Parma investments arm, which have a combined annual turnover of more than €4.5 billion and employ 15,000 people across nine countries, the group said in a statement after staff were informed of the development on Thursday.

The overhaul sees Mr Goodman step down from the board of ABP Food Group, the largest beef processor in Ireland and Britain, which dates back to 1954. However, his son, Laurence Goodman jnr (40), will join both the board of ABP Food, where he has extensive prior experience at both plant and divisional level, and the overarching supervisory board.

The beef magnate’s younger son, Mark Goodman (37), who resigned as managing director of ABP International a year ago, has also stepped down from the board of ABP Food, according to the statement. He established an investment company this year, called Bellingham Capital, to target opportunities in the agribusiness, food and renewable energy fields across Ireland and Britain.

By Joe Brennan / The Irish Times

Pork imports from EU countries with confirmed cases of African Swine Fever (ASF) must be halted or the domestic pig sector could face economic devastation.

That was the message from NFU Scotland president Martin Kennedy as he warned the Westminster Government that ASF was ‘moving fast’ across Europe, posing a serious biosecurity risk to producers.

In a letter to Defra Secretary George Eustice, Mr Kennedy pointed out no checks had been carried out on EU pork imports to the UK since January 2021, adding this could not be allowed to continue.

“The Government has taken no action to date due to concerns about breaking compliance with the Trade and Cooperation Agreement,” he said.

“We have been told that action would be permitted if Europe is having difficulties in controlling disease outbreaks.

“Following discussions with European colleagues, this is clearly now the case.

“I am in no doubt that should the situation have been reversed, our exports would have been stopped entering Europe many weeks ago.”

by Hannah Binns / Farmers Guardian