One of the UK’s biggest pork producers has spent £4 million hiring butchers from the Philippines, after a staffing crisis threatened to hamper production. 

Cranswick Plc, which supplies supermarkets with pork and poultry, is paying for 400 butchers to travel from the Asian islands to work in Britain after staff from continental Europe flocked home following Brexit.

“It’s absolutely necessary if we want food on the plates,” said Cranswick’s CEO, Adam Couch. “Obviously it’s very expensive to bring them over, but it’s far better to bring them over than to curtail production as we did this time last year.

Couch said that paying for each butcher from the Philippines cost between £10,000 and £12,000 — equivalent to more than £4 million. Each butcher needs a visa, a flight to the UK, an English test and accommodation. Cranswick has an apprenticeship program to train up new butchers, but Couch said that there was just “not enough people”.

Before Brexit, around 65 per cent of Cranswick’s workers were from central Europe. Last year, Cranswick had 25 per cent fewer staff than required at its plants in Hull and Norfolk.

Jayne Arnold from the Food and Drink Federation said the whole industry is suffering from a lack of staff “despite employers making significant efforts to attract workers from offering higher wages to introducing more flexible shifts.”

 

 

Sabah Meddings / TimesLive.co.za

 

Former Defra Secretary George Eustice has launched a blistering attack on former Prime Minister and International  Trade Secretary Liz Truss over her handling of the Australian trade deal.

The deal included giving Australia or New Zealand full access to the UK market to the beef and sheep market, albeit phased in over 15 years. Yet Australia still bans the import of British beef and there was virtually nothing in return for UK farmers. The Government estimated the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement, signed on 17 December 2021, would unlock £10.4bn of additional trade while ending tariffs on all UK exports to Australia.

While pork was not a part of the deal, with Australia not being significant exporters, the fear within the pig industry was that could set a dangerous precedent in future trade deals.

Mr Eustice, who was sacked by Mrs Truss when she became Prime Minister, told a Commons debate that it was a bad deal for the UK, especially its farmers, and stressed that lessons need to be learned as the UK negotiates future deals.

“Unless we recognise the failures that the Department for International Trade made during the Australia negotiations, we won’t be able to learn the lessons of future negotiations,” he said.

“The first step is to recognise that the Australia trade deal is not actually a very good deal for the UK.”

 

by Alistair Driver / Pig World

Just confirmed today, the requirement for veterinary visits attestations  for export certs pushed back another year to 13/12/23

Certification of ‘regular vet visits’ for EU exports or NI movements

Date issued: 16 November 2022

Purpose
To inform Official Veterinarians (OVs) and other veterinary certifiers that for export of Products of Animal Origin (POAO) to the EU, the EU requirement for farms of origin to have a regular veterinary visit can be certified as follows:
i. Until 13 December 2023, this EU requirement can continue to be certified based on a farmer declaration.

ii. After 13 December 2023, farmer declarations will no longer be accepted and this EU requirement must be certified based on other evidence such as membership of a recognised farm assurance scheme or via a valid veterinary declaration.
The relevant official Notes for Guidance will be updated in due course to reflect this 12-month extension to the previous temporary policy.

Background
1. The EU Animal Health Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/429) created a new
requirement for farms producing animals or products of animal origin or germinal
products for export to the EU (or movements to Northern Ireland under the conditions
of the Northern Ireland Protocol) to be subject to ‘regular’ veterinary visits.

This is implemented by Article 8(e) Delegated Regulation 2020/692.
“must receive regular animal health visits from a veterinarian for the purpose of the
detection of, and information on, signs indicative of the occurrence of diseases,
including those listed diseases referred to in Annex I relevant for the particular species
and category of animal, germinal product or product of animal origin and emerging diseases.

Such animal health visits shall take place at frequencies that are
proportionate to the risks posed by the establishment concerned.”

2. Official Veterinarians (OVs) have had to certify compliance with this new requirement
since 15 January 2022.

3. Farmers only need to comply with this requirement if they are providing relevant animals
or products for export to the EU or for movements to Northern Ireland.

4. The regular veterinary visit requirement can be certified if the farm of origin is a
member of a recognised assurance including Red Tractor, Welsh Beef and Lamb
Producers and/or Quality Meat Scotland. A list of qualifying farm assurance schemes
has been published and will be reviewed on a regular basis.

5. The regular veterinary visit requirement can also be certified on the basis of a valid
veterinary declaration. A template Establishment Veterinary Visitation Declaration for
this purpose can be found on APHA Vet Gateway (ET242).

6. Until 13 December 2023, for farms that are not part of a recognised farm assurance
scheme and are not able to provide a valid veterinary declaration, a farmer declaration
can instead continue to be used to support certification of the EU ‘regular veterinary visit’
requirement. This can be provided via the Food Chain Information (FCI) document.

7. Farmers must use the available time to choose either to exclude their animals or products
from EU export, join a recognised farm assurance scheme or obtain an appropriate
veterinary declaration.

8. Defra will work closely with Official Veterinarians, the Royal College of Veterinary
Surgeons, farmers, markets and exporters to facilitate, where required, provision of
veterinary declarations to certifying OVs. We will issue further guidance in due course.

Action
Official Veterinarians (OVs) and certifiers providing Support Health Attestations at abattoirs
should note the updated guidance on certification of the EU requirement for regular
veterinary visits.
For further information please contact [email protected].

 

Gov.uk

Farmers are being told to expect delays for this years peak lamb kill, with the season expected to be longer due to labour shortages.

Processors have been struggling with staff shortages for the past two years due to the border closure and staff being off sick with Covid-19.

AgriHQs latest market update said staff shortages had been a major problem for some processing plants and in some cases lambs were sent back to the farm as there were not enough staff to process them all.

 

Alliance Group, which operates five meatworks in the South Island and two in the lower North Island, had not had to send lambs back, but farmers were experiencing wait times of 10 to 14 days.

General manager livestock and shareholder services Danny Hailes said plants were still processing old season lambs.

Its Lorneville plant had been undergoing maintenance, but would be up to speed next week and the Smithfield plant will ramp up quickly after a one week maintenance shutdown from 28 November, he said.

“Any backlog that we have will be cleared pretty swiftly.”

 

Lorneville would start on two chains and would be operating six by Christmas. There was a goal of getting a seventh processing chain operating in the new year subject to labour.

Staffing had slightly improved with the border reopening but it was still not straightforward to bring in workers from overseas.

“We’re doing our best to get labour in from overseas in a way that suits our seasonal ramp up, but the reality is that we won’t have the numbers of people at the time that we want.”

Farmers should have their lambs processed as soon as they’re ready, he said. “Don’t hold off any longer than you need to.”

 

Silver Fern Farms chief supply chain officer Dan Boulton expected the labour situation to be marginally better than last season.

“However that’s coming off a relatively low base and so we still expect some disruption and delay in the season ahead.

“We’ve got to acknowledge that it’s been a long and challenging few seasons for many of our site staff, and our processing volumes will also be determined by how much sustainable overtime can be achieved without impacting our staff well-being.”

 

by Sally Murphy  / RNZ

 

LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters) – New UK government regulations set to come into force in December could prevent thousands of British meat producers from exporting to the European Union, the industry warned on Tuesday.

The British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) said a requirement for farms wishing to export to the EU to provide documents signed by vets that confirm visits to farms rather than the current system of farmer declaration was not achievable by the government’s Dec. 13 deadline.

It said that while the new rules would not impact farms covered by a UK Farm Assurance scheme such as Red Tractor, thousands of other farms would need to have a signed vet visit before the deadline.

It estimated the new rules, which it said have not been demanded by the EU, would take over a year to implement, partly due to a shortage of vets. It noted 72% of all UK meat exports go to the EU.

“If regulatory changes about to be introduced by Defra are allowed to go ahead on that date, a significant amount of the UK’s meat production will become non-compliant for export to the EU overnight,” the BMPA said in a letter to Defra minister Mark Spencer.

 

Reuters

The International Trade Committee today calls for an analysis of potential risks to the UK’s food security arising from the New Zealand trade deal.

In a new report on the UK’s trade agreement with New Zealand, the cross-party Committee of MPs raises concerns over the elimination of tariffs on New Zealand goods and the impact of opening UK agri-food markets to cheaper imports.

Much of New Zealand’s beef, sheep-meat and dairy are cheaper than those produced in the UK due to lower production costs.

With the Government’s impact assessment predicting that the UK’s agriculture, forestry, fishing, and semi-processed food sectors could contract due to increased competition, the Committee questions whether the pros and cons of tariff liberalisation have been fully considered.

While concluding that, on balance, the agreement should be ratified, the Committee outlines that it presents few new opportunities for UK exporters, and suggests more export opportunities or greater safeguards for the sector could have been negotiated.

The MPs criticise the absence of a single, unifying Government trade strategy and call for the publication of a clearly defined vision for trade, showing how it balances different priorities in the best interests of consumers and businesses. The Government’s approach to negotiating new deals is characterised as reactive and hasty, and not joined-up across departments. The Committee notes that current Treasury plans to raise taxes on higher-alcohol content beverages could negate measures in the agreement aimed at reducing the price of New Zealand wines.

The Committee also expresses shock that the UK is signing trade deals without thoroughly understanding how they interact with the Northern Ireland Protocol. MPs call on the Government to provide reassurance on how agreements between the UK, the EU and New Zealand will interact so that Northern Ireland can benefit from the trade deal in the same way as the rest of the UK.

The report calls for MPs to be given the opportunity to debate the agreement during the Parliamentary scrutiny period, with the ability to show their support, or otherwise, for it through a vote.

 

 

UK Parliament

Romania confirmed an outbreak of African swine fever on a large pig farm in the western county of Timis, on Wednesday October 13.  

It was also confirmed that 39,000 animals will be culled and that local authorities and the food safety agency were meeting up to agree on next steps, Reuters reported.

County prefect Mihai Ritivoiu confirmed the outbreak on Facebook, saying: “It is official, there is an outbreak in Timis. We must take measures to combat the spread of the disease. A priority is to protect two other farms, each with tens of thousands of pigs, located a few kilometres away.”

Romania has already reported hundreds of cases this year, including several large farms, as well as smallholdings and ‘backyard’ pigs.

 

By Meghan Taylor / Pig World

Meat group Danish Crown has pared its plans for potential job job cuts at two local slaughterhouses.

Last month, Danish Crown flagged 350 redundancies at abattoirs in Sæby and Ringsted because of fewer pigs coming in for slaughter as farmers grapple with “record-high” feed and energy costs, with some giving up all together.

However, those numbers have now been more than halved through a combination of longer working days with more breaks and a reshuffling of staff.

At Sæby, a town on the east coast of Denmark, 275 jobs were originally slated to be culled but that now falls to around 115, a company spokesperson confirmed. More staff will shift to a daytime working pattern producing ham and will take an additional 15-minute break to allow for a longer day.

A further 75 jobs were set to be axed at the abattoir in Ringsted, a city 60km from the capital Copenhagen. Those have been cut to 25 as some workers have opted for voluntary redundancies or moved into other functions at the slaughterhouse.

The reduction in pig numbers has also affected Tönnies in Germany. Between 500 and 600 slaughtering and cutting positions have been eliminated since June across its sites in Sögel, Lower Saxony, and Weißenfels in the south of Saxony-Anhalt. The UK arm of meat processor Pilgrim’s Pride has also set out plans to close two pig slaughterhouses, putting 675 jobs at risk.

 

By Simon Harvey / Just Food

Spot rates on transpacific routes have halved since the end of April.

The huge increase in freight costs that began during the early stages of the pandemic is beginning to unwind, with rates for shipping containers from China to the US Pacific coast halving over the past two months. The cost of moving goods around has been one of many inflation drivers of the past year, so the reversal will be a positive shift for consumers if savings are passed down along the supply chain.

Spot rates for shipping a 40-foot container on this key trade lane have fallen from $15,255 (£12,798) at the end of April to $7,568 by 1 July, according to booking platform Freightos. The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) – an amalgamation of global spot rates – has fallen by 27 per cent over the same period.

Hefty surcharges that shipping lines were levying on customers to ensure containers were placed on vessels are no longer being applied as demand declines and congestion around key ports eases, Freightos chief marketing officer Eytan Buchman told Investors’ Chronicle.

Rates are sliding at a time of year when they generally increase as the peak shipping season ensues, when importers typically pay up to secure space on vessels ahead of back-to-school and Christmas trading periods. Spot rates are about 9 per cent lower than they should be given typical seasonal patterns – or about 15 per cent lower on transpacific routes, according to Vespucci Maritime chief executive Lars Jensen. This is an indication that importers are “seeing a slowdown in consumer spending”, he said.

 

 

By Michael Fahy and Marcus Ritson / Investors Chronicle

Weak demand on the domestic market continues to apply a brake to the UK pork market, although rising EU prices are providing a glimmer of hope. 

“Trade seems to be reflective between last week and this coming week with signs of little change regarding demand being still less than brisk, Thames Valley Cambac said in its latest market update.

“Perhaps as the week unfolds ahead of a short week to mark the funeral of our Queen, any additional demand might encourage buyers to stock up on and support British at a time of great reflection across the country. We certainly need to see demand for available products improve in Q4.”

Prices continue a ‘slow but forward trajectory’, with the SPP lifting 1.13p, the biggest weekly jump in just over a month, and after sticking for one week the German market stepped up another 5 cents to €2.10/kg. In the UK, most Q prices are over the £2.00/kg mark, which is very welcoming.