TheMeatSite Newsletter - 16 June 2010

Wednesday 16th June 2010

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Welcome to this week's newsletter

Editorial: Greater Optimism for Pig Meat Industry

The World Pork Expo took place in Des Moines, Iowa, last week amid greater optimism for the pig meat industry than in previous years.

As pig prices in the US have started to improve, the industry has put out calls for further inmcentives with the backing of free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and particularly South Korea.

World trade offers a huge opportunity for US pork producers past president of the National Pork Producers' Council Don Butler said during the expo.

He said that through trade with Colombia and Panama a small amount would be added to the US pork producers' income, but South Korea could at around $10 a head.

He said that studies have shown that the FTA with South Korea could add 9,000 jobs to the pork industry.

However, there was also convern over the potential added costs that new food safety legislation would add to the industry.

NPPC board member Bob Dykhuis said that the council had concerns over the provisions for mandatory recall and also the inclusion of civil penalties for food safety breaches.

These, he said, would do little to add to consumer confidence.

Mr Dykhuis said the NPPC is also opposing moves for a registration fee to be imposed on then industry.

"These should be funded through the general budget," he said.

Howveer, the National Pork Producers Council called for animal identification legislation to be brought into force swiftly.

Away from the World Pork Expo, in the UK, trials at a Scottish meat processing plant are set to play a crucial role in a trail blazing project to develop an automated process to determine the eating quality of meat.

The £950,000 IMEQ (Integrated Measurement of Eating Quality) project, jointly funded by Quality Meat Scotland and the Scottish Government, will see Scotland first to have novel technology which could deliver benefits throughout the meat production chain.

The project will explore semi-automatic and automatic means of measuring pH, temperature, meat colour, carcase fat, eating and nutritional qualities. It aims to examine ways of integrating these measures into a new process for use on the line in abattoirs to replace the current limited system with one which is faster, less labour-intensive and less expensive.

Chris Harris

This Week's Feature Articles

We have 5 new features this week:

Bocaddon Farm Veal
John and Vicky Brown rear over 100 veal calves a year at Bocaddon Farm, Cornwall. Selling to restaurants, farmers markets and through mail order, calves are sourced from the family dairy farm and other local dairies. Charlotte Johnston, TheMeatSite junior editor speaks to the couple about the challenges and opportunities that await them.

Resurgence of Frozen Ready Meals
The competition between the frozen and chilled foods markets in many parts of Western Europe is strong.

Polish Agribusiness - Important to Europe
Poland is one of the EU's most important agricultural product providers, according to a new food and beverage market report from Business Monitor International, "Poland Agribusiness Report Q2 2010", writes TheMeatSite senior editor, Chris Harris.

Meat Decontamination: Needs, Approaches. Benefits, Concerns
Undercooked ground beef patties were involved in an outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in the western United States in 1992-1993 and resulted in illness of several hundred people and four deaths, writes John Sofos from Colorado State University in a paper for the Advancing Beef Safety through Research and Innovation - Prosafe conference last year.

World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates - June 2010
Due to drop in demand, cattle and hog price forecasts for 2010 are reduced from last month, according to the USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates for June 2010.

Global Meat Processing Industry News