Meat industry unruffled by government advice

02-Mar-2011 - Last updated on 13-Mar-2017 at 19:57 GMT

The British meat industry seems completely unconcerned about the new government advice to limit red meat consumption to 70g a day, believing it will have no impact on the livelihoods of meat farmers and processors.

The government advice was issued by the Department of Health last Friday, following the publication of a report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) on the links between red and processed meat and bowel cancer. The report concluded that red and processed meat probably increases the risk of bowel cancer and people who eat around 90g or more should consider cutting down to 70g to reduce their risk.

One might expect that there would be some backlash from the meat industry about the potential damage to meat sales, but according to the Department of Health this hasn’t happened.

“We don’t think there’s any panic in the industry; we haven’t had a backlash from meat producers, but then there were no big surprises in the report, and we’re not expecting a sudden drop in red meat sales. It’s only actually 12 per cent of men and women we’re targeting with the advice,” a Department of Health spokesperson told FoodNavigator.

Chris Lamb, head of marketing at BPEX, an organisation that represents pig levy payers in England, told FoodNavigator he agrees that the advice has been received calmly by the industry. He suggested that one possible reason for the absence of reaction is that the advice was not completely out of the blue.

“It was not unexpected. The SACN report has been delayed for about two years, so the fact it was coming was no surprise to anyone,” he said.

Nor does he believe the advice will have a detrimental impact on meat sales.

“If you could show me anything that said that as a result of this report there was a decline in meat purchases I’d be gobsmacked. There have been so many reports over time; at the end of the day it is just another and it doesn’t have any less or greater credibility than any other.”

He adds that in any case, the findings of the SACN report are not all negative for the industry, and that there are many similarities between the SACN report and research from the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) which was published around the same time and on the face of it appears to conflict with the SACN findings.

“In terms of the substance of the two reports there is not a lot of difference – both contain comment about the beneficial nutrients in red meat and both refer to the inconsistencies in research into red meat and cancer.”