Sheriff warns firm over BSE failure
Orkney Meat in dock over hygiene breach

Orkney Meat have admitted failing to remove all the material necessary to comply with meat hygiene regulations to prevent the spread of BSE on two separate occasions.

However, it was a legally required independent check, paid for by the company, which highlighted the defects in a bovine carcase and sheep carcase, before leaving the abattoir, Kirkwall Sheriff Court heard this week.

Defence agent Mr Bob Shaw appeared in court on Tuesday on behalf of the company – who were awarded more than £800,000 in grant aid for a major redevelopment of the plant at Hatston in Kirkwall recently.

The package, from the Scottish Executive’s Processing Marketing Grant Scheme, supports a £2.3 million project to increase chilled storage capacity, update abattoir and cutting facilities and instal new plant and equipment.

The upgrades are said to meet future requirements in terms of hygiene, traceability, animal welfare and waste minimisation.

General manager of Orkney Meat, Mr Edgar Balfour, was also present in court to hear Sheriff Colin Scott Mackenzie defer sentence on the company for one year for good behaviour.

The full charges state that on September 18, 2000, Orkney Meat Ltd failed to ensure that all specified bovine material was removed from a bovine carcase as soon as was reasonably practicable after the animal had been slaughtered and, before the carcase was presented for inspection to the Meat Hygiene Service, in that a large portion of the thymus (a glandular organ in the neck) had not been removed.

The same charge was repeated the following day involving sheep material, in that the spleen had not been removed.

The court heard that on the first day in question, a trainee had been carrying out the work, while the next day, although it was a skilled slaughterman on the job, he had been filling in for a sick colleague. The trainee no longer works with the company and the slaughterman has been transferred to other duties, Mr Shaw said.

Sheriff Scott Mackenzie was told that the regulations had come into force during December, 1997.

Orkney Meat, who have no previous convictions, had taken the matter very seriously, according to Mr Shaw, who said it was not possible to gauge the degree of risk to the public.

“There are different regulations depending on the age and type of carcase,” Mr Shaw pointed out. “It is the job of a company like the accused to note precisely what is to be removed and to ensure that that is done.

“The regulations are quite precise and specific in the parts of the carcase and internal organs which must be removed. There is in place a system of checks and correction points, put there by the company.”

Mr Shaw explained that each carcase passes through a set procedure of checks designed to ensure that no carcase can, or does, leave the abattoir without having been inspected, approved and stamped by a Meat Hygiene Inspector.

These checks were in place at the time of the offences and, according to the sheriff, were obviously working in that they had showed up a failure prior to any carcase leaving the plant. They were picked up by the Meat Hygiene Inspectors.

Mr Shaw continued: “There is no reason not to remove the organs – no gain in not removing them. Orkney Meat admitted these failures and took immediate action in each case. Both operatives were removed from the line.”

Orkney Meat had processed between 200-300 carcases during those two days and since has dealt with 44,000 carcases – each individually inspected without problem, Mr Shaw said.

“Orkney Meat pride themselves on the quality and standard of the meat that leaves the abattoir. It is not a case where the carcases were in the public domain – there was no risk to the public in that sense. There has been no repetition and not likely to be any repetition,” Mr Shaw added.

Sheriff Scott Mackenzie pointed out the public concern of even the remotest possibility of any risk of these materials getting into the food chain.

“It is a matter of the utmost seriousness and yet they have done their best and done their best very well as far as I can see, to ensure there is no repetition.

“I think to enable and encourage them to keep a very close eye on what is happening in their procedures, I am going to defer sentence for one year. Should anything further occur in that time the consequences for the company will be substantial.”