Trade is key to sustainability

This column was originally published in Meat Management in December 2021

It has been wonderful to see the return of in person events in the meat sector. I had the pleasure of attending the first ever City Meat Lecture, as well as the Women in Meat Industry Awards recently. While quite different events, they both gave me equal cause to reflect. The Women in Meat Industry Awards is an excellent annual celebration of all the brilliant and committed women who work in the meat industry and in the supporting sectors. To see so much talent and enthusiasm in one room was really heart warming after what has been a difficult 18 months for many.

The initiative taken to organise the City Meat Lecture reminded me that the sector has some wonderful advocates, who want to push the industry forward. It can’t have been easy to put together an in person event on this scale in the times that we are in. The keynote speaker and panellists were clearly carefully selected to both educate and challenge us, all while providing much food for thought. Professor Frédéric Leroy, coming from an independent and scientific background, gave an enlightening key note speech. A key take away from the Lecture was that meat doesn’t seem to get a fair hearing in some parts of the academic world. The key nutritional benefits from meat consumption seem to be downplayed somewhat, while there appears to be inconsistency in how the environmental impacts of meat production are reported on. Driving towards production more in tune with the needs of the planet is something I would imagine most in the industry would support. However, the debate on how to move forward on this needs to be informed by a scientifically proven and generally accepted understanding, which seems to be lacking. Speakers on the night were keen to warn the industry not to shy away from addressing difficult challenges.

IMTA has always seen two way trade in meat as a key aspect of sustainability. Some of the products we export are exported because they are less favoured by the UK consumer. Due to trade, these can go to parts of the world where they are more highly valued and sought after. This means we are able to make the most of every part of the animal– the chicken feet, the pig trotters, the tripe, the gizzards. This means less environmental impact from otherwise rendering such product, and instead ensuring it is consumed by people across the world as food. Equally we import cuts which we don’t have sufficient resources to produce in the quantities demanded by the market.

Having access to sufficient markets for our exports should be seen as a key part of the sustainability puzzle. I was therefore pleased to see Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Secretary of State for International Trade, state in a speech recently that we must ‘put rocket boosters under our exports, and break down the barriers to market access’. As we have seen over the last few years, trade can be disrupted for many reasons and that is why it is imperative that we have a choice in markets to export to and we therefore hope to see commitment from the Secretary of State and others to opening new markets for meat.