FSA challenges industry concerns over meat inspection charge plans
Under the new charging system, slaughterhouses, meat cutting plants and game handling establishments would have to pay an estimated £17.93m extra every year to cover the costs of official controls carried out by meat inspectors and vets, said the body.
At present, the inspection of these plants costs £62.5m – of which industry and the FSA paying around half each.
Since 2010, the government agency has been trying to introduce sweeping changes to the regime on the grounds that as a regulator it should not have to subsidise the meat sector.
Effect on industry
The new system- to be phased in over three years – would save the tax payer almost £18m annually without harming public health or food safety, said the body yesterday in an assessment of the proposals.
Summing how the new charges would affect industry players, the FSA said of 1,214 establishments considered in the impact assessment, 528 (43 per cent) were currently already paying the full charges under EU regulations and would not be affected . It added that 187 (15 per cent) would move from their current discount to full cost recovery, and 499 (41 per cent) would switch from their current discount to a tiered reduction of the full cost charge, subject to the EU minimum charge.
The FSA also challenged industry claims that the proposals would have a significant effect on the sector by hitting companies just above the 5,000 livestock units a year threshold.
The agency said such industry claims had not been backed up with evidence and set out figures that it said showed only a small proportion of companies would fall into this category.
“Of those 187 establishments that will move to full cost recovery, 123 are medium sized red meat or poultry slaughterhouses,” said the FSA assessment. “However, this is a broad and diverse category, and of those 123 medium sized slaughterhouses, 85 process at least 10,000 livestock units or equivalent per year, and 38 process between 25,000 and 50,000 livestock units annually.”
It also outlined the effects of processors passing on the full fees increases to livestock producers - estimating that the rise in cost per animal as a percentage of its overall value would range from 0.81 per cent for sheep to 1.72 per cent for chickens.
The FSA said that even in the “extremely unlikely” event that the full cost increases would be passed on to consumers, these too would not be significant; 0.16 per cent for a whole chicken; 0.24 per cent per kg of lean mince and 0.61 per cent per kg of pork loin chop.
