BUTCHERS LICENSING REPEALED

Butchers lead the way with HACCP

At their meeting in Edinburgh on Thursday 10th March, The Food Standards Agency Board was asked to decide the future of our national licensing legislation for retail butcher shops. It is necessary to review this legislation because the current licensing requirements will otherwise cease on 1 January 2006 when the new EU food hygiene legislation takes effect. The Board recommended to agree that the Agency should not propose new butcher shop licensing legislation when the current requirements are repealed on 1 January 2006.

In the process of licensing standards improved. Hygiene / HACCP* Training and support is crucial but butchers should not be a special case. It was a reactive response that failed to address some problems in other sectors when raw and ready to eat food were handled.

As far as SFMTA and its members are concerned the removal of Butchers Licensing is not seen as the lifting of a "sentence" post John M Barr. It is viewed as other secoters of the food industry being brought up to the standards of butchers. It is not a lowering of controls or standards in butchers shops.

Certificated Hygiene at foundation level will remain in the SVQ system at Level 2 and best practice within the sector will probably mean that the retail meat industry will maintain the training levels that now exist even if they are no longer strictly demanded by law.

*HACCP - Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points