As the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has finally announced, after some almost pathetic last-minute tinkering, that full cost recovery will go ahead virtually as planned, the meat industry, as it is, now finds itself in a blind alley with nowhere to go.
The FSA has been true to form. Despite the charades of “consultation”, “stakeholder meetings”, “working together with industry”, the reality is that they have never had any intention of participating in any such party games, and indeed, as time as gone on, their contempt for trade spokesmen and food business operators, etc, has been, even in these elitest bureaucratic times , and I choose this word very carefully, frightening.
Although I have always been, and remain, suspicious of the long-term plans of the British Meat Processors (BMPA), the likes of their spokesman, Mr Stephen Rossides, plus willing characters who I have much more affinity to, people such as Norman Bagley and William Lloyd Williams, must now surely realise what cannon fodder they have been all these years; all the willing time given and long days spent trying to rationalise with officials with jobs to protect – surely the penny has dropped by now, hasn’t it?!
War has been declared, and the “Chamberlain “ moment has come and gone. Big question is, are there the Generals out there to take us into battle, and perhaps even bigger question, have they got the armoury and the backing to do so, even if they wanted to? To bring about such a strategy, there would have to be first and foremost an almost seismic change of attitude right across the abattoir industry; a willingness to go into conflict mode unprecedented in this industry.
If such a scenario should emerge, what might be the way forward? First, remove all communication with the enemy (the FSA). Stop the fruitless meetings, forums, etc, that soak up so much precious time and money. Then, put together a cabinet to plot tactics for the war to follow, and from the outset, begin the building of a war chest, paid for by those of us with everything to gain and not much to lose. All this to be backed up with a media campaign in which to state and lobby our case, to show the British public what we stand for and what we’re up against. To be painstaking and persevering, relentless even. To reveal what the FSA fears most – the truth.
Once the battle plan has been established, add to this a strategy of taking the FSA to court as necessary and to back our legal system to give us a much more fair interpretation of the law, which is ridden roughshod over.
The FSA will be backing the reasoning that the industry has not the will, the courage, the expertise, the knowledge or the nerve to follow such a path?
Well, have we?
To succeed you have to try
Toby Baker