During the ensuing century, regulations to set and ensure compliance with high standards of meat hygiene were introduced in the public interest in the UK and many other countries. However in recent years, in response to big business lobbying and corporate interests, deregulatory policies of both the European Commission and UK Government have led to a growing share of meat inspection duties being handed over to the private sector meat industry and to a massive reduction in independent inspections (inspector numbers have more than halved in the past 15 years). This sorry state of affairs was outlined in an excellent UNISON statement yesterday:
http://www.unison.org.uk/localgov/meathygiene/news_view.asp?did=8348
UNISON has long warned of the catastrophic consequences of cuts in trading standards and meat hygiene services and the current revelations of large scale sub-standard meat products and corporate fraud will come as no surprise to our members working in those services. A recent article in a trade journal highlighted UNISON concerns about further a planned watering down of EU meat inspections.
http://www.themeatsite.com/meatnews/20083/cuts-limiting-meat-inspection-and-standards
