Brexit fails to deliver for small abattoirs

The Farmer’s Guardian have published an article this week setting out the view that the EU rules imposed over many years which led to huge closures of abattoirs such as veterinary inspection fees have not been reduced or amended at all. The sector were told that once out of the EU there would be the opportunity to review some of the regulations which have been heavy handed and detrimental to the small scale abattoirs taking a one size fits all approach regardless of a 10 LSUs or 10,000 LSUs operation.

Indeed some operators states the opposite has happened in that the UK has ‘goldplated’ EU rules to avoid any trade issues and made the situation even less flexible than it is over in EU states. This is leading to further concerns of more closures and also restricting small abattoirs being able to assist as much as they could with problems like the pig crisis.

You can read the full article here.

The Abattoir Sector Group is currently working with Defra to look at the regulatory issues via a task force that hopes to report by the summer on what can be done to reduce the burden on small operators.