【Text/Observer Network Zhang Zhaodong】
According to the British "Guardian" reported on November 3 local time, due to the shortage of butchers, British meat producers decided to transport the slaughtered livestock carcasses to EU countries for slaughtering, and then imported back to the UK. The meat in and out of each truck will add an additional cost of 1,500 pounds (about 13,000 yuan), and the meat cannot be labeled "British pork" when it is sold in the UK.
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Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, said beef producers in the UK were transporting slaughtered cattle to Ireland, where they were being packaged after being processed at local meat processing plants before being shipped back to the UK. Pork producers, on the other hand, ship slaughtered pigs to the Netherlands for processing before importing them back to the UK and placing them on supermarket shelves for sale. It is worth mentioning that when these pork are sold, they cannot be labeled as "British pork".
According to the British Meat Processors Association, each truckload of livestock meat will add an additional cost of 1,500 pounds (about 13,000 yuan), including transportation costs and the costs associated with the customs clearance process, such as export hygiene certificates for each shipment.
In addition, since Brexit, BRITISH meat exports to the EU will be inspected, but these meats will not be inspected when they return to the UK, because the import control measures on food and animal products after Brexit have been postponed twice in a row and are expected to be implemented in July 2022.
Allen, CEO of the Uk Meat Processors Association, said: "Once the UK starts inspecting imported meat, this may not be a good long-term solution. It depends on the work of UK Customs. ”
According to the Financial Times, after the Uk's "Brexit", EU citizens cannot live and work visa-free in the UK, a large number of labor is lost, and there is a shortage of butchers in the UK meat processing industry. Coupled with the impact of various factors such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic and China's suspension of imports of British pork, the backlog of pork in the UK is increasing.
Due to the lack of capacity of meat processing plants, some British farms have begun to slaughter and destroy healthy pigs on a large scale in order to stop losses. A farmer in Yorkshire, England, could not slaughter adult pigs because of the shortage of labor in the local slaughterhouse, and he had to slaughter hundreds of healthy piglets to reduce costs and ensure the living space of adult pigs on the farm.
Speaking to the BBC, the farmer said: "It's desperate, I've been raising pigs for 26 years and have never faced this situation of having to slaughter a pig on my own farm. ”
Britain's National Pig Producers Association said 10,000 pigs had been slaughtered and destroyed so far, and the campaign was continuing.
Allen, CEO of the British Meat Processors Association, said that many British meat companies have about 15% fewer employees than needed to operate normally, and some companies have a 20% staff gap.
Before the British meat producers came up with this "export to domestic" trick, the British government has also begun to take measures.
Last month, the UK government agreed to issue 800 temporary visas for foreign butchers, allowing them to work in the UK for 6 months to alleviate the labour shortage in the UK's meat processing industry.
However, the move appears to have had little effect, with the UK's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (defra) refusing to disclose the number of "butcher visa" applications they have received so far. Some farmers and meat processors pessimistically say they don't expect them to be on the job by the end of November. Even some processors worry that these butchers will not be able to come before Christmas.
Allen, CEO of the Meat Processors Association, bluntly said that the initiative has a limited impact, "We have been saying that we are still short of 10,000 to 12,000 such workers, and 800 is not much." Things were already clear, only 6 months, and then they were gone again. ”
In addition to issuing "butcher visas", the UK government has taken steps to provide farmers with funds for refrigerated slaughtered livestock, a November moratorium on a tax of almost £1 million on pig farmers and producers, and an extension of the meat industry's working days where possible.
Zoe Davies, chief executive of the National Pig Association, said the government's recent initiatives had not yet had an impact on pig farmers, who were struggling to house and feed adult pigs that should have been slaughtered. "We're in trouble, butchers are the most meaningful resource we can have, and if we can put them on the job, we can handle more pigs."
Davis added: "Sadly, if the government had acted early, this whole situation would have been avoidable. While the government announced a series of very welcome measures in October, we have yet to see any benefits. Even if these measures work as expected, it will take some time to have a meaningful impact on the farm. ”
"For many, it's too late."
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced without authorization.