‘100-plus tons of beef a year go up in smoke’
Wednesday 24th February 2010, 2:29PM GMT.
BURNING Guernsey’s unwanted cattle is a scandalous waste of food, according to the UK director of the Soil Association.
Patrick Holden (pictured) was in Guernsey talking about the importance of developing a sustainable food strategy for the island – and sending its cattle up in smoke was definitely not part of that.
The island’s abattoir cannot check for BSE so cattle over 30 months must be incinerated.
‘It is an absolute scandal. It must be Guernsey’s best-kept secret, that all this wonderful food is being incinerated,’ he said,
He told more than 100 people at a meeting that around 450 cows, each representing 250kg of meat, were incinerated each year. ‘It is embarrassing for Guernsey,’ he said.
A Commerce and Employment spokesman said that brain stem tissue would have to be taken from each animal over 30 months after slaughter and sent to a specialist laboratory in England for analysis.
That could take up to 10 days and the carcass had to be kept refrigerated. If the BSE test came back clear the carcass must be butchered on site to remove the backbone and other ‘at risk’ tissue.
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I love beef send the meat my way, meat is for winners
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Anybody could say it’s a waste, why do we need all these English people coming over stating the blind obvious!
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So why not train someone to do the testing in gurnsey-you must have a laboratory on the island or are you that far behind? please stop this waste it must be aganst Human Rights or the poor Animals Rights
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I love nothing better than roast beef and yorkshire pud, steak or even the occasional burger. Send some my way. I’ll be more than glad to help!
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GG
You might well ask….. but it turns out that we have been doing this for years. A huge waste of good meat, fossil fuels and our money.
Patrick was here to give a talk about the future of food security and how we all need to create more sustainable and robust food systems, without which, we are pretty vulnerable. The discovery that we are burning perfectly good animal carcasses demonstrates that we are not taking the issues of sustainability or local food production very seriously. Makes us look a bit daft really!
His talk incidentally, was excellent. He talked for over an hour without any props or slides and had the audience spell bound throughout. He really brought it home that we need to support our local food producers and be more enquiring about the food that we eat.
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If we knew about it, I’m sure everyone here would say the same.
So, if you work in an industry and you feel it’s inefficient or wasteful and it’s publicly supported, tell us yeah?
Side note, why can’t we just set up a testing lab here? The extra sales of meat would surely support it’s cost, and we could create more jobs!
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DA DO, it’s probably because of cost, it’s cheaper to burn the little fellows than train and test here.
And yes, this goes against every human right going! (I assume that bit was a joke).
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450 cows as 250kg of meat each.
thats 112,500kg of meat in total.
Consider mince retailing at £4.40 per kg
Thats £495,000
Half that for wholesale so consider about £220,000
Take wages out of that:
three people at £30k – skilled
two at £18k – labour
Thats £94k left for general expenses
That’s assuming all is ground down to bargan basement cuts, and a 50% markup.
After my SHOCKINGLY awfull math, it seems like it’s probably a profit?
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I’m with you there MeatEater – I’ve got a freezer ready and waiting! :-)
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Joshua, nice Math(s). I’m no expert but I have seen some figures saying roughly £50 a head for the test (£22,500), so I agree that there would be profits.
I disagree with the idea of setting up a ‘specialist laboratory’ on island and employing five people to deal with between one or two samples a day. These labs would deal with hundreds a day, so it seem like a pretty cushy job.
But as I said, I’m no expert, I just like (BSE free) beef.
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Think of all those lovely Steak and kidney pies,
But in all honest thinking minds come that thought;
What can one expect from a load of amateurs.
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Well, I am surprised that I am the first to point out that this meat is old cow. The only person I know who eats Cow Pie is Desperate Dan!
This is not the delicious Guernsey Beef you get from steers – which is still available locally.
In the past this meat was sent to the UK for sale to processors.
If it was not incinerated I suggest it might still end up being exported.
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What?! That’s so wrong. I don’t care if this meat is older and tougher or whatever. Swing some this way and I’ll eat it. It’s food at the end of the day and in my books we shouldn’t be wasting so much of it. And when was the last time we heard about BSE? Maybe I’m naive or something but I thought we didn’t have to worry about that risk anymore? Surely if they invested in this testing equipment or whatever it would pay for itself eventually?!
So when a cow reaches a certain age they just kill it then burn it? That’s just not right. What a sad story.
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My word, Bisson having had his wings well and truly clipped tries another way;
And that way shows where all his thoughts (well others thoughts) where they come from-
Beano and Dandy are his reading material:
Desperate Dan his Hero.
Well done Roy; you’ve made our day.
Bet you also read Comic Cuts good ideas there for a Statesman, when one hears all the rubbish they all pour out: No wonder there’s such a good sale for the works of “The Funnies”.
Oh Yes in case you should answer in your professional way; I do read them, I thought that if such a prolific man like you can read them then I must also try to reach those heights you have achieved. I know it takes years.. I’ll try.
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Roy.
Most of the cows will be older dairy cows that are no longer producing full quotas of milk…… but not so old that they would not make perfectly good mince. And of course some of the cows would be younger cows that just don’t make the grade for whatever reason…… not getting into calf etc.
Our abattoir is no longer fit for purpose as it does not have the cold room needed to hang the carcass for the 3 days while the spinal cord is sent for testing. I gather it also doesn’t have the facilities for butchering the carcass.
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Is it not the case that Roy is simply fixated on incineration, whether it be waste, animals, whatever?
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Roy
Some times it’s best to button it. You can’t be an expert on every subject. Pick your battles my friend.
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Eric – no wonder you are always so rude – you don’t read Beano!
I was only trying to help with a few facts. I certainly do not support the destruction of food, and if these cows can be processed here, then we should do so. It is just that they were all exported before BSE came along.
Neil -I am sure that is sound advice!
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Roy!
You do yourself no good by such answers;
As for rude, my goodness. are all your kettles white?
No Roy, too often you are at the wrong end, and now with your mate; you can say bye bye to local politics.
Your behaviour might suit a Children’s playground, (they’re easy to convince.
But adult Guernsey people have had enough of your bad manners, go go go.Never darken our doorstep again.
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