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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:18 am
by justmalc
This year we will have our first sales of Dexter beef with six steers ready for butchering between July and November. We have a small group of initial customers to whom we are selling beef in shrink wrapped freezer packs.
However, we need additional customers and are thinking about distributing flyers to local villages. We understand that we will have to be careful to be in line with Trading Standards etc. and wondered if anyone has any experience of producing promotional material for Dexter beef and would be prepared to share the benefits of that experience.
As an alternative to selling the beef to consumers, we are also considering the possibility of selling finished steers to people who have an established market. If anyone knows of possible buyers for finished steers perhaps they would be good enough to let me know, we are based near Stamford in Lincolnshire. [Tel: 07799 340893].
Many thanks for all your help.
Regards,
Malcolm
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 11:26 pm
by Ted Neal
Take great care with labelling. Prepacked meat should have a label showing the individual animals identification (Ear Tag number), the coulntry of origin, the country where killed and the cutting plant identification. Strangely enough you are not allowed to describe it as Dexter beef - unless you have paid to have the description registered. You can get around it by including the word Dexter on the animal's id. Some Trading Standard offices are keener than others.
Good luck
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 3:45 pm
by Rob R
Is that really so Ted? I've never heard of that before. Our Trading Standards were quite happy to label beef as "Dexter Beef" providing it had the information required by the beef regs, namely license number of both slaughter & cutting plants, unique reference code, packing date, country of birth, rearing & slaughter (or "origin" if all UK), along with accurate weights & measures.
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:35 pm
by Ted Neal
You have a very understanding Trading Standards Office, mine seem to operate to the letter. They even said that even a blackboard advertising Dexter beef constituted a label !!!
I belive this is all tied up with the European Union (what isn't these days ?) whereby the use of the word Dexter needs to be registered to denote a Product of Distinction. I think the DCS were involved in getting this registration done.
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 11:47 pm
by Duncan MacIntyre
I think that you also have to have a verified audit trail to link the Dexter alive to the pound (or is it kilo) of mince before you can label it Dexter. Back in the mid 90s when this was first regulated to such a degree Di Smith did a lot of work for the DCS on the subject, so she may be able to update us.
Are you out there, Auntie Moomin?
I did have some of the original consultation papers but I think they are all put out now since they were so old.
Duncan
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:03 pm
by Rob R
Very interesting Ted & Duncan."verified audit trail" - do you know who exactly would have to verify this information for it to be legally valid?
If you were stating the eartag as the reference code, I wouldn't have thought there would be much dispute, but then the local authorities do seem to spend so much time attacking the small producer with EU rules & blantantly ignore the multinations (I think it probably has something to do with making their enforcement figures look better, prosectuting 100 smaller businesses, instead of one large one 
)
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2005 4:19 pm
by Kathy Millar
It's a wonder anybody bothers anymore. Canada is starting to increase the amount of regs like eartags and inspected abattoirs but we can still sell without all the labelling. Only a matter of time before we catchup to you folks.
The joke is, that all the problems come from the factory farms and feedlots and not the little guys. Yes, they do want to stamp out the little guy here in Canada too and it's really creepy how they are going about it 
Kathy