Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
MR DAVID
JOLL, MR
ANDREW LEWINS
AND MR
PETER BRADNOCK
17 JUNE 2003
Q180 Mr Wiggin: To what extent do
you believe that the UK welfare standards for poultry are more
stringent than those in other European countries?
Mr Bradnock: Perhaps I could start.
I think the main area here is that certainly the industry in the
UK does take animal welfare very seriously indeed and it is very
much part of the ethos of the companies producing birds because
of the vertically integrated structure, which means that the ethos
can be translated into action on a very large number of farms—from
an individual company which may own 200 or 300 farms. That ethos,
that approach, can be translated very rapidly into standards on
the farms. That is certainly what happens. The other aspect of
the remainder of the production is via contract growers which
are under very strict contract to the integrated companies, and
it is again very much the same approach there. The other aspect
within the industry is the very close collaboration with the Farm
Animal Welfare Council over a good many years at all levels of
the industry, and welcoming work with the RSPCA in that area.
We have assured chicken production standards and quality British
turkey standards which go beyond regulatory requirements in a
number of areas.
Q181 Chairman: You mentioned turkeys
there, so can I come in on that question. One of the second-wave
countries in EU enlargement is Romania. Is it still the case that
Bernard Matthews have turkey interests in Romania?
Mr Joll: No, Chairman, not in
Romania, Hungary.
Q182 Chairman: I do apologise.
Mr Joll: We certainly do have
interests in Hungary.
Mr Bradnock: I think the other
area is that the EU and UK legislation offers protection to poultry
production both from the breeding point of view and in rearing,
transport and slaughter. There is a legislative environment there
that poultry fits into and it protects the welfare of poultry.
We are looking at specific rules coming forward from the Commission
very shortly on chickens and we welcome that approach because
it will bring together all these different rules into a single
body of rules. The other aspect, I think, is that there is no
farm animal welfare legislation to speak of in most of the third
countries that are actually exporting poultry meat to the EU and
to the UK, and I think that has been very clearly demonstrated
by the very recent report by the Commission on this matter. The
other area is that there is a greater influence by the retailer
in the UK on the industry and, indeed, welfare groups are very
strong and very vociferous here and do have an impact on retailers
and on the industry directly. I think all those points do mean
that we have a much greater consciousness and action standards
in place, higher than in most other countries.
Q183 Mr Wiggin: We had Compassion
in World Farming giving evidence to us last week, and they came
out with the fact that millions of UK broilers suffer from painful
leg disorders, and their heart and lungs fail to keep pace with
rapid body growth as a result of their being selectively bred
to reach slaughter weight in 41 days. My understanding was that
those sorts of statistics were history. What is really going on
and do we have such poor levels of welfare?
Mr Bradnock: Certainly not. You
mentioned leg issues there; leg health in the UK broiler flock
is very good and we have very low levels of prevalence of leg
weakness—less than 2% by the latest survey that has been
done, a very large survey, of the national flock.
Q184 Chairman: Would not 2% of 800
million be 16 million birds?
Mr Bradnock: Certainly I think
we need to look at it in terms of percentages. We are talking
about very large numbers of birds, so even 1% is 8 million chickens,
so we are not saying that it is not a significant factor but in
terms of prevalence and in terms of prevalence in relation to
other livestock species it is improving all the time but it is,
by any standards, very low. Compassion in World Farming mentioned
millions of birds but not percentages or prevalence, and I think
that is really what we do need to get down to.
Q185 Diana Organ: Why is it that
your ACP code permits stocking densities to exceed those of Defra
welfare codes? Do you think the public knows about this? You say,
to the comment by Mr Wiggin about what is the real picture, we
have heard about these problems with legs and broken wings and
whatever, and yet your code accepts a density which exceeds that
of the Defra welfare code. There has to be a problem, does there
not? The denser the stock density, obviously, the more likely
there is to be problems with welfare.
Mr Lewins: The Defra guideline
of 34kg is now something like well over 30 years old. What the
production codes of practice acknowledged was the work being carried
out by Marion Dawkins out of Oxford University for Defra, a three-year
study that is due for publication I believe next year.
Mr Bradnock: I think she is writing
up this vast publication.
Mr Lewins: We will be guided and
directed by that work that is coming out.
Q186 Diana Organ: You make it sound
as though the density or the welfare standards set by Defra, because
they were set a long time ago—the world is a different place
for all of us. It might be for you and I, and 30 years ago we
all lived with bigger gardens and more space and we have all now
become more used to a higher density as human beings, but that
is not the case with animal welfare. Just because it is old does
not mean we can therefore push down the acceptable limits of welfare,
does it?
Mr Bradnock: I think the situation
has vastly changed over the last 30 years. From the point of view
of the actual bird itself, the genotype is different.
Q187 Diana Organ: You mean it is
a smaller bird? It is not a smaller bird though, is it?
Mr Bradnock: We are talking here
about the actual capacity of the house to take a certain number
of birds, a certain weight—we are talking about the weight
of birds here. It is a combination of weight and numbers of birds
but in the UK we talk about weight. In that time the genotype
of the bird has changed but, also, the ventilation capacities,
the design and the ability to manage the houses, the quality of
the housing, the quality of the nutrition, the hygiene standards
in the houses—all of that is a much better environment for
these birds to be reared in now than it was 30 years ago, or even
15 years ago. So we really are talking about two quite different
worlds. The 34kg was a rule of thumb at a time when there was
very little or no ventilation in houses, and it is a totally different
world now.
Q188 Diana Organ: I wonder if I could
move on to something slightly different, although the same kind
of thing. You and the British Retail Consortium and all sorts
of people have been involved in all sorts of partnerships between
producers and the retail sector about getting assurance schemes
and quality schemes, to make it, effectively, easier for the consumer
to think "This is a quality product", "This is
a home-produced product", "This is something that may
encourage me to buy this product", but we all know that there
is a huge amount of difference between the specification that
certain retailers will have on their producers and the specification
in certain farm assurance schemes. How does the consumer work
their way through these differentiated schemes? How can they think
"That means I get this kind of welfare, and that means I
get this kind of traceability, and that means I get this kind
of product"? Does it help? Or is it so confusing that, actually,
it is meaningless?
Mr Lewins: I think the assured
chicken production standard which we collaborated on as an industry
about three or four years ago was to address some of that confusion.
We had probably not done very well as an industry about 10 to
20 years ago in that we had to be led by our first customer, the
retailer, into various standards and codes of practice. We arrived
at a situation where each retailer had its own particular code
of practice, its own particular standard against which to award
it, and that was adding cost and inefficiency, etc etc. We got
together with the NFU and with the British Retail Consortium and
wrote what we believe was a world-leading set of standards covering
issues of food safety and animal welfare. All the retailers bought
into that and now replace their audits with an independently audited
scheme; it is a separate limited company, it is audited to EN45011
standards and the way that was marketed was under the NFU Red
Tractor launch. In terms of brand recognition, for the money that
has been put behind that, that is one of the most successful brands
the world has ever known, but it has had minimum money put behind
it and it covers an awful lot of industries and an awful lot of
products. Underneath the AFS2 body, which is just coming out,
hopefully that will be a drip, drip, drip process. However, I
take your point; in branding terms someone will recognise the
Red Tractor but the housewife may not yet recognise the brand
values of that brand. I think it is an evolutionary process.
Q189 Diana Organ: Has it helped to
make your sector more competitive? Some people are saying "We
would like to meet this assurance scheme and get involved with
that" or "We have got to supply Tesco so we need that",
but has it made it more competitive?
Mr Lewins: We have definitely
become slightly more efficient because in the main the fresh,
primary chicken cabinet in the UK is of UK production. Taking
away all the different audits and all the different standards
and replacing them with one, there has definitely been some efficiencies.
There have, however, been significant costs in the industry adhering
to those standards, be it in salmonella control, animal welfare
or the stocking density issue; they are, nevertheless, baseline
standards that were not in the industry four years ago, and I
do not believe there is another industry in the world—and
I travel it—that has a self-regulated a code of practice
to that level.
Q190 Diana Organ: However, as you
said then, that is to do with the fresh on the shelf. An awful
lot of poultry is eaten or purchased by the consumer not as a
fresh item on the shelf, it is in a frozen pack or it is in a
processed or ready-made meal or it is in a sandwich—you
can go on ad infinitum. So the differentiation of these
schemes and the multiplicity of them means very little when you
are going into Pret a" Manger to buy a chicken sandwich,
or you are going to buy chicken tikka masala made at Sainsbury's,
because you are not even looking for that.
Mr Joll: I entirely agree with
you, Mrs Organ. I endorse what Andy said and it applies to Quality
British Turkey as well. From the research point of view, I can
assure you the British consumer has got a lot more confidence
in a chicken or a turkey produced in Britain, so the sheer fact
it is registered as an assured British chicken or a quality British
turkey—first point—does help a lot. Secondly, to carry
that mark the meat can only be British—and we are with you
all the way. The official policy of our Poultry Council is to
have country-of-origin labelling. We think the consumer must have
an informed choice, but I can assure you that no product can carry
"British chicken" or "British turkey", obviously,
unless the meat contained therein is of British origin.
Q191 Diana Organ: It is confusing.
As a consumer and now looking at this inquiry, I am also the shopper
for my family, and the barbecue season is amongst us so we end
up buying packs of frozen chicken. I look at the back labels from
various supermarkets and it is very difficult to tell if it is
a British product because it says "Produced in the UK for
. . ." whichever main High Street store it is. What it does
not tell me is where it came from, the country of origin, because
"Produced in" means it was frozen and packaged in the
UK but I do not know whether it has come from Brazil or whether
it has come from Thailand, do I?
Mr Joll: That is absolutely correct,
and I think the legislation needs to be amended. The legislation
at the moment states that the meat can come from any country in
the world but if the finished product is produced in the UK then,
as the law is written, it is a product of the UK.
Q192 Chairman: Should British consumers
be nervous if the country of origin is Brazil or Thailand?
Mr Joll: That is a very difficult
question. The evidence, at the moment, from the EU is that Brazil
leaves an awful lot to be desired. They have had three formal
warnings, at least, in terms of their control—or absence
or lack of controls. Of course, reference was made by the Egg
Industry to nitrofurans. In the British industry there has never
been a positive isolation yet, yet the country continues to receive
positive nitrofurans from Brazil. In fact, the incidence in January
this year was even worse than the months of last year. So there
are some reasons to be worried.
Q193 Diana Organ: We are going to
go to Brazil, but I think we probably will not eat their chicken.
Have any of you done any research on the good old British consumer?
When they buy a poultry product—and I do not mean just the
fresh, I do mean the frozen, the processed and the multiplicity
of ways in which you can purchase chicken—which is foremost:
is it taste, cost, safety, traceability or country of origin?
What is the real thing for them?
Mr Joll: I have to just tell you
as it is, Mrs Organ, it is cost.
Q194 Diana Organ: Always cost?
Mr Joll: Way out front.
Q195 Diana Organ: So they do not
care whether it comes from Brazil and it could be filthy and it
could taste of rubbish?
Mr Joll: That is important but
it is down the scale. When asked to rank, one to ten, in importance,
one is cost.
Mr Lewins: I think as well, as
a shopper yourself, our retailers have been hugely successful,
and deserve their success, but people buy the retailer brand.
When someone walks into the retailer they are buying safety by
buying that brand. Once the housewife has made that choice, all
of our work says that the number one purchasing decision is price.
Q196 Diana Organ: Last week when
the British Retail Consortium were in front of us I asked them:
the British Poultry Council reports that 90% of UK chicken and
turkeys are produced under the assured chicken production quality
and British turkey schemes. My question to them was, what happens
to the 10% that is not? What happens to it? It is not covered,
so where is it going, who is producing it?
Mr Lewins: With the BRC and the
NFU, all the bodies, when we went into the ACP, as I said, there
is a cost of doing that, approaching £300 a year to pay for
the audit for the farmer, there are capital costs of upgrading
facilities to get in there, so there is an element of the industry
whose market does not request membership of the ACP, who therefore
perceive no value in joining it. So that 10% would typically find
its way into wholesale or some food service outlets.
Mr Bradnock: A very small proportion
would be organic production, probably not 1%.
Q197 Diana Organ: So they are actually
at the two ends: for the 10% that are not in it, if you like,
it is either because they have their own codes and are pricing
themselves into a certain niche because it is organic, free-range
or whatever, and the other, presumably is at the bottom end of
the market that is producing?
Mr Lewins: It basically has free-range
codes. As I say, it depends on the customer. If their market does
not require it you can understand their reticence to come into
the fold.
Mr Joll: If I can add an answer
for the turkey industry, Mrs Organ, there are some turkey farmers
who have written to me as Chairman of the British Turkey Federation
complaining that the Quality British Turkey standards are so tough
that for the 20-25,000 turkeys a year, which is not a lot, that
they produce for the Christmas market they cannot afford to build
buildings and have the systems that bigger companies like ourselves
have. So I would not wish to say their standards are not good
but they say that they cannot do the building standards, etc,
that we can.
Q198 Mr Wiggin: You have made some
very positive comments about the turkey industry, but Brandons,
for whom I had a lot of growers in my constituency, did not make
it. What went wrong with them?
Mr Joll: It is what I was trying
to say at the beginning, Mr Wiggin, it is imports; the pound has
been so strong for such a very long time now. We, as a company,
are more fortunate, we have invested in branding and we have invested
in value-added. The turkey industry is in desperate trouble where
they depend upon oven-ready turkeys and turkey meat, and similarly
for whole-chicken producers and chicken meat.. The pound has been
so strong that it has been attracting imports into our country
on a massive scale, particularly from third countries. We do not
pretend to be fortress UK—not at all—and although
the French industry was helped hugely in the 70s and 80s (we do
not bemoan that now) the attack is coming from the third countries.
There are two reasons: one is the strong pound, as I said earlier,
and the second is that it is a lot easier in the UK to become
established because the British supermarkets have got such strong
branding of their own that it is easy to send meat to be packed
into a British retailer brand, whereas if we were to go to another
country in the world we have got to create a brand in that country.
So we have, as a nation, very strong supermarket branding in the
UK. It is economics.
Chairman: We would like to move into
the area of environmental regulation.
Q199 Mr Wiggin: To what extent have
environmental regulations helped to improve the efficiency of
the poultry sector? Have they at all? In your submission you said
"modern poultry breeds are also benefiting the general environment
by halving the amount of feed and water needed . . . and manure
produced ".
Mr Bradnock: One of the effects
of the selection process has meant a more efficient bird in terms
of the use of scarce resources and, also, because it reaches market
weight more quickly than the older breeds; therefore it is consuming
less and excreting less of course. We are also seeing now, under
the IPPC working with the Environment Agency, requirements to
try and, if you like, make that bird even more efficient in terms
of its feed so it excretes even less in the way of nitrogen and
phosphorus and so on. So we are looking at—and this is coming
from the Environment Agency itself—how we can reduce emissions
into the environment of nitrogen and phosphorus. One way is by
manipulating the feed of the livestock. It is very difficult to
do that with birds or with animals that are free-ranging because
you do not have the control over their feed to the extent that
you do with indoor-reared birds. So this is something that is
starting to come from the Environment Agency, and we are looking
at that kind of aspect. You have to be very careful, of course,
that you do not go too far in the sense that that can upset bone
formation. We have seen some instances of this in other countries
where the environmental legislation has caused some industries
to reduce the amount of these elements in the feed, and with disastrous
effects.
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