Yesterday Dr. Alan O’Reilly of the FSAI told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture that there were three reasons to justify the withdrawal of all pork products from Ireland’ shelves last month. See report in The Irish Times today.
His third reason was the most worrying: “It was not possible to distinguish between contaminated and uncontaminated products in about 98 per cent of the national pork throughput. Reminding the committee that pork was back on the shelves within a week, he said if all pork had been left on the shelves, it would have been impossible to trace contaminated products.”
So much for the traceability that the FSAI themselves have imposed on us.
98% of pork products are NOT traceable?
Our supplier of bacon for curing is only able to give us full traceability if we get pork killed on a Monday. Any other day, and we will only know that it came from one of maybe 5 to 10 herds. We’ll be getting our bacon from the Monday batch from now on. And we will put the name of the grower on the label.
If the FSAI insist on us implementing all the “controls” for “one step forward one step back”, then let’s make it applicable for ALL steps.
Update: Please see Comment below.
Our supplier has requested that we make a couple of corrections to our post above.
Firstly, the number of herds slaughtered on any one day would range from 5 to 10, and not 10to 15 as mentioned.
Secondly, they can provide full traceability at any stage and any day but this facility will incur an additional charge and would be subject to minimum quantities.
The reason for charge of the Traceability back to a particular farmer on orders below a minimum size is due to the slight modification to the processing the Boning Hall Supervisor would have to make because the pigs are currently graded per weight and not per Slap Number.
The reason that they can provide full traceability FOC on the Monday is that they have a large customer who has also specified full traceability.
Thirdly they assure us they are in compliance with the current rules and regulations in regard to traceability in the pork industry.
It is very much to be hoped that these regulations be amended as soon as possible to help instill confidence in the consumer and to give the customer the knowledge of where their pork comes from.