Do you need a license to sell my beef?

Bellington Dexters · Post by **Bellington Dexters** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:21 pm

i have heared that u need a license to sell beef , is this correct please mesage me back asap please

mindenho · Post by **mindenho** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 10:05 pm

Not as far as I am aware. I have been selling Dexter beef for several years now and have never heard of needing a licence. I do have the animals cut up and packed by a local butcher - it maybe that you need a licence if you are butchering it yourself. I've no doubt someone else will know.

moomin · Post by **moomin** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 11:25 pm

No licence needed for selling raw meat only. Need a licence if you are selling cooked meat, which most butchers shops do.

Peter thornton · Post by **Peter thornton** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:07 am

If you cut beef to sell at a Farmers Market etc then you need a cutting room prepared to a very high standard - all kinds of regulations. However, if you sell cooked product from, say, a burger van then you can (in the words of our local hygiene officer) prepare it in a clean kitchen.

I can see the logic in this. The only thing for sure is that it ain't ever going to get eany easier.

Have you read the latest SFP rules re cross compliance? The end result is going to be that there simply will be no way on earth to check up on all of this.

Sylvia · Post by **Sylvia** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 11:36 am

If you have your meat butchered and vacuum packed professionally, bring it home and freeze it down in your freezer and then sell it you DO need a licence (at least you do in Wales) even if you only sell it to friends and relatives. If you simply take the fresh meat from the butcher to your customers you do not. I think a lot of people don't bother but if you want to be legal (or advertise your meat) you do need one.

moomin · Post by **moomin** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:04 am

I have a butchers shop on farm and have sold Dexter beef, lamb and pork, made sausages, burgers and bacon for about 20 years. One of my staff did the HACCPS course when licencing for butchers shops was first required, £100.00 per year. Our environmental health officer then told us the good news that as we didn't sell cooked meat then we didn't need a licence and she had just saved us £100.00! The licencing has, or is about to stop anyway, according to my federation magazine.
A lot of EHO's are very ill informed about licencing and will assume you are selling other goods as well, they are so used to inspecting supermarkets. Direct them to the relevent law. If you are selling RAW meat only then you do not need a licence! You do need a licence to sell game. You may be subject to a local EHO inspection and trading standards will check your scales, usually once a year. It is not mandatory to vacuum pack meat either for a farmers market, it can be packed in ordinary food grade polythene bags. Put it in cool boxes for carriage and display it on trays with ice blocks underneath. You do not need to have a refrigerated vehicle either. It is not as complicated as people assume to comply with the law. It is advisable to have some third party insurance however in these days of litigation.
Keep it simple, it is not as complicated as it seems and good luck.

Sylvia · Post by **Sylvia** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 10:15 am

I bow to your greater experience, moomin, but I was only relating my own experience which involves selling home produced beef from freezers on the farm. I didn't have to pay anything for the licence but I did have a visit from an EHO who looked where the freezers are kept, the condition of them etc. It was because my meat is vacuum packed that I 'got away with' keeping the freezers in a stone barn. Had I been handling unwrapped beef I would have had to upgrade the barn, plaster the walls etc. Unless small producers have a significant customer base I think it is necessary to assume some meat will have to be frozen. Freezing the meat puts the producer in the food chain. But then, this is Wales.

Peter thornton · Post by **Peter thornton** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:02 am

I think that both of you are right. You don't need a licence if you are selling as Di described, but you DO need to follow the rules as to preparation and storage. Much depends upon the local EHO and, of course, whether or not they know what's going on.

I know that our local butcher complains that the farmers markets are not checked as closely as he is, I've a feeling that there may be a tightening up of this area before long.

Jo Kemp · Post by **Jo Kemp** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:16 pm

If you sell vaccuum packed meat , taken from the butcher - no problem.
If you sell from a freezer you need to comply with various regulations ie. the freezer temperature needs to be checked at least once a day (it may be twice) and logged in a 'freezer log book'
I don't think a licence as such is needed... I sell nearly all of mine straight from the butcher but people from afar tend to want the meat when they visit. My freezer is a commercial one.
Jo

Inger · Post by **Inger** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:16 am

You folk are lucky. In NZ, the only people who can sell meat are the registered butchers and even then the animal has had to have been killed at a freezing works. We can only sell live animals and the new owner has to keep it for a month (in case its within the withholding period of being drenched) and then they can get a homekill butcher (or do it themselves) to slaughter and dress the meat for them. They cannot onsell the meat. It has to be eaten by their family. All meat being sold has to have passed inspection at a registered freezing works, here in NZ. Much tougher laws that the UK I think.