Meat crime
Meat crime encompasses a range of activities including illegal slaughter, the production of ‘smokies’, the recycling of waste meat back into the human food chain, illegal importation and the false health marking of ‘suspect’ products.
Such crime has the potential to damage not only public health, but also the environment and the health and welfare of livestock. Detection and enforcement is difficult and costly, and the perpetrators of meat crime can generate huge profits with little risk of being caught and punished.
Since 2003, the CIEH has sought to raise awareness of the seriousness of meat crime and to promote the need for better procedures and stronger powers to tackle it. Our activity has included:
- A “Stamp it out” campaign run by Environmental Health News (EHN)
- The Cracking Down on Meat Crime conference in November 2003 passed 10 resolutions on future action to tackle meat crime
- A conference - Fighting Meat Crime: Helping Enforcers Tackle the Problem- held in March 2005
- A PR campaign leading to extensive coverage in national, local and specialist press and broadcast media
As a follow up to the conferences, the CIEH carried out a CIEH Meat Crimes Survey 2005 to identify key concerns relating to the issue. These included:
- The costs of investigating and presenting cases of meat crime
- The lack of deterrent penalties
Considerable work has been done on meat crime by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which has published Guidance for enforcement officers.
The FSA has also set up an Illegal Meat Task Force. Initially thirty local authority enforcement officers from the UK and the Republic of Ireland were trained by the FSA in high level investigatory skills and other legal matters. Currently there are 28 members active within the UK, where they continue to work from their seconded authorities.
Fighting meat crime can be expensive for local authorities. To assist them in their work the FSA has agreed a process by which they can apply for Agency support. Decisions on the nature and extent of Agency financial support available from this Fighting Fund are made on a case by case basis.
Food fraud
At the February 2006 Food Standards Agency Board meeting a paper was presented recommending the establishment of an independent Food Fraud Task Force to look into the issue of meat fraud and to make recommendations for tackling food fraud. Under its terms of reference the Task Force, on which the CIEH was represented, considered various issues likely to impact on food fraud and, in particular, the current controls in place and their suitability to deter food fraud. The Task Force initially focused on the meat sector, and drew lessons which were applied more broadly to the rest of the food industry.
The Final Report of the Task Force was presented to the FSA Board in September 2007. In March 2008 the Board discussed the recommendations in the report and an action plan detailing the Agency’s proposed response. Included in the report to the Board meeting was a paper on a European Food Fraud Conference held jointly with the Food Law Enforcement Practitioners Forum in January 2008