Welcome to Toby Baker's first blog!

Welcome to my first blog! New territory for me so please be understanding. My intention is to give a regular feed of information, as it happens, so to speak. For abattoir operators, of course, this involves dealing every working moment (and more) with the enforcement agency that covers slaughterhouses, namely the Meat Hygiene Service(MHS).
I won't rehearse here my true feelings and thoughts about the MHS; I have been doing that for nearly 20 years through letter writing, personal websites,etc, so my views are well documented;(interestingly, a well-known meat trade magazine that always used to publish my letters, doesn't any more; that's the editors prerogative and rightly so, but you do wonder why)?


I would be keen to hear from any fellow abattoir operators for a view on what " MHS transformation" has meant to them, but the big issue for abattoir operators at the moment is the move, in September, from being charged on a unit-cost basis to an hourly charge; in other words , from a guaranteed maximum charge to a guaranteed minimum; predictions please!

My intention is to report on my dealings with the MHS on a regular basis on this blog. Yes, I'm going public, to inform the outside world what actually occurs in an establishment such as mine, and hopefully, reaction and comment will ensue.

Regards from Toby Baker, otherwise known as the Don Quixote of the meat trade!