Challenges to the UK poultry industry: the consumers demands, legislative changes and the industries' response. Dr. Daniel Parker BA VetMB CertPMP MRCVS

Abstract:

Modern consumers of poultry meat and eggs products have a variety of demands to which the producer must react. Issues of concern include food safety, welfare, antibiotic usage, uses of new technology as well as price. This paper will outline the history of some of these issues, whom or what are influencing policy and how the UK poultry producers are reacting to these changing consumer demands.

INTRODUCTION

The world consumption of poultry meat continues to rise on a year by year basis both in the undeveloped and developed countries. In most countries this increase in consumption has occurred due to either an increase in per capita consumption of total meat products or because of poultry meat replacing beef as the consumers choice in meat products. Whilst there continues to be a year on year increase in poultry meat consumption in the more developed countries there are increasing concerns about food production issues such as food safety, welfare and the environment. This paper will discuss these issues and illustrate how the UK poultry industry has responded to changing consumer requirements.

CONSUMERS

When producing for the UK market we can no longer just consider the end consumer of poultry products, since other groups and opinion formers will have considerable influence in the market. We need to consider the influence of the supermarkets and other retailers who since the BSE and salmonella crises have taken it upon themselves to champion the consumers. Producers of meat and eggs have to comply with strict requirements of the supermarkets and their buyers who have considerable influence on the products that are placed on sale in the stores. Other important opinion formers are the media. TV and newspaper coverage of food scares can have significant effects on consumer buying behaviour. Finally pressure groups such as RSPCA, Compassion in World Farming and Friends of the Earth can raise issues in the public conscience due to their extremely well developed public relations machines. Interestingly a recent survey by the Food Standards Agency revealed that when unprompted UK consumers considered that price and taste were the two key influences on which products they bought. However when prompted, welfare, country of origin and food safety became more important concerns in their buying behaviour. Clearly the modern UK consumer is a complex character.

FOOD SAFETY:

A number of food safety issues related to meat and eggs have hit the UK media in the last decade: Salmonella in eggs, BSE in beef and dioxins in poultry meat. Whilst a crisis in the beef industry such as BSE might initially have had a benefit to the poultry meat sector as consumption switched from beef to chicken, the overall effect was to reduce the consumers confidence in meat products and production methods. The effect of the 1988 salmonella scare in eggs had a dramatic effect on the per capita consumption of eggs in the UK, which continued for over decade to 1998.

Graph of the consumption of eggs 1986-1994

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE AND DRUG RESIDUES:

There has been increasing concerns about the use of antibiotics in animal production in Europe in the last decade. The initial concerns were related to the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria in human hospitals and the so called úsuperbugsî. Whilst it was recognised that the over use of antimicrobials in human medicine and the poor level of hygiene in many hospitals was probably the major reason for the development of these úsuperbugsî in hospitals, the finger was also pointed at úmodern farming practicesî. One of the outcomes of this concerns was the formation of a working group by Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF). This working group reported in 1999 and made a number of recommendations regarding the use of antimicrobials in food producing animals.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

There is increasing concern about the effect of modern farming methods on the environment. Whilst many of these concerns are being directed at the arable farmers eg. the use of pesticides, genetically modified crops and the removal of hedgerows. There are also concerns about the levels of nitrates and phosphates produced by the intensive livestock sector and how these by-products of production are being handled and managed. Furthermore there is concern over the use of genetically modified grains in animal feeds and the potential effect this will have on the animals and the food produced from them.

The concerns about climate change have also affected livestock farmers as well as other more conventional heavy industries.

ETHICAL/WELFARE ISSUES

Welfare continues to be placed high on the agenda of many consumer groups. The welfare issues include the banning of cages for egg producing birds, stocking densities at which broilers will be reared, leg strength in broilers, beak trimming and other mutilations.

Ethical issues related to consumer items are becoming higher profile. These also extend to food production. Such issues include:

ë Price paid to the producer.

ë Labour pay and conditions.

ë The production of cash crops for Western consumption in countries at the expense of local agriculture to produce staple foods.

ë The transport of food long distances (food miles) to satisfy western markets.

There have been two major outcomes as a result of these food scares and consumer issues:

ë The production of new legislation.

ë Assurance schemes.

Numerous pieces of legislation have been introduced by government to demonstrate its commitment to resolving the issues. Assurance schemes have in the main been introduced by the producers to demonstrate there is traceability and transparency in food production. By giving the consumer assurances about the way food is produced, confidence can be restored.

LEGISLATION

Several pieces of legislation were introduced in the UK after the 1988 úSalmonella enteritidis in eggs fiascoî to control salmonella in the poultry sector. Legislation introduced included:

ë The Poultry Laying Flocks (testing and registration) Order 1989

ë The Poultry Breeding and Hatcheries Order 1993

ë The Processed Animal Protein Order 1989

These pieces of legislation focused on the prevention of birds becoming infected with salmonella from contaminated feed and through vertical infection from parent flocks. Furthermore the poultry laying flocks order aimed to reduce the incidence of positive commercial laying flocks that were producing eggs for human consumption. This piece of legislation created a lot of controversy and was revoked in 1993.

This early legislation was aimed at reducing the level of salmonella infection in the breeding pyramid and did not directly address the issues of infection of commercial poultry with salmonella. However with legislative and farm management changes, the levels of salmonella infection in the breeding pyramid and feed contamination has been dramatically reduced.

European legislation regarding the control of Salmonella has to date been very fragmented. Requirements have been left to member states. A new Zoonosis Directive, currently in the advanced stages of drafting, will address the control of organisms of zoonotic significance including Salmonella, Campylobacter, verotoxigenic E.coli and Listeria. This legislation will aim to control Salmonella infection at all levels in chicken meat and egg production. The directive will set target levels for key salmonella serotypes of public health significance in each of the target animal species. Difficulties have arisen in the drafting of this Pan European legislation. These include how to decide which of the 2500 known salmonella serotypes should be included on the list of Salmonellas of public health significance. Eg. Should a salmonella serotype that may cause only a small number of cases in the humans, but the resources to reduce its incidence further in the target animal population be afforded the same priority as if it were causing a large number of cases in the human population. In another case a serotype might be common in humans but seldom found in the target animal population, so reducing the level in the target animal population would not have a proportionate effect on the incidence in the human population. Other considerations are the methodologies and verification of testing and how product will be handled pending the results of testing. For example the current draft states that ú fresh poultry meat from animals listed in Annex 1 may not be placed on the market for human consumption unless it meets the following criterion: Salmonella: absence in 25gramsî. If this is implemented it will have major logistical implications for producers with regard to the storage of fresh carcasses pending these results and the impact on shelf life of fresh poultry products.

Further discussions and negotiations will be needed before the final legislation is drafted and implemented. What is also not clear, is what salmonella controls will be required of third world countries aiming to export meat and egg products to the EU.

The concerns about BSE in the UK beef herds led to the banning of meat and bone meal in ruminant diets in the mid 90's. Whilst this product was not banned in poultry diets, the UK industry recognised the potential negative publicity surrounding the use of meat and bone meal and voluntarily removed it from chicken diets around the same time. EU legislation was relatively slow to follow and it wasn't until 2001 that the feeding of animal protein to chickens was banned in the EU. The future of fishmeal in chicken diets is uncertain although it is allowed at this time.

Concerns about antibiotic resistance have had a dramatic effect on the use of antimicrobial products in Europe. The initial concerns related to the rise in the number of vancomycin resistant Enterococcus (VRE) bacteria isolated from food animals. In a number of studies in Denmark and Norway the percentage of VRE was higher on farms that had used Avoparcin as a growth promoter than on farms that have not used Avoparcin. The conclusion was that these farms were important reservoirs of VRE. Whilst these Enterococci of animal origin may be able to colonise and cause disease in humans there is also strong evidence that the genes conferring resistance in the animal sourced enterococci could be passed to human Enterococcal strains and also to multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). This led to the banning of the use of Avoparcin in food animal diets in the mid 1990's. Further research in Denmark demonstrated streptogramin resistant Enterococci on farms where virginiamycin had been used as a growth promoter. The EU agricultural council took the decision to suspend the licences for tylosin phosphate, spiramycin, virginiamycin and zinc bacitracin as growth promoters from 1 January 1999.

The use of anticoccidial products which have antibiotic activity e.g. monesin, narasin and salinomycin are being scrutinised more closely by national governments in Northern Europe. There is a desire to remove these from the market but at the present time there are no viable alternatives in conventional broiler production. There is increasing activity from certain pressure groups e.g. Soil Association, Compassion in World Farming to have antiobiotic use banned in all livestock production. However, as with coccidiosis control the total ban will require dramatic changes to production methods and there will inevitably be welfare issues if a total ban on the use of antibiotics is imposed.

Drug and chemical residues are monitored by government agencies through statutory and non-statutory sampling of food at processing plants. Council directive 96/23/EU lays down the measures to monitor the substances and groups of residues listed in Annex I. Substances covered include hormones, antimicrobials, other veterinary drugs and further substances. The directive also defines the minimum number of animals from which the samples must be taken and how frequently each group of substances in Annex I must be tested for. The findings are reported in the UK on a quarterly basis by Medicine Act Veterinary Information Service (MAVIS). Any non-conformances are investigated by the government agency responsible for monitoring drug residues. Countries exporting meat to the EU have to demonstrate that they can monitor in a similar way and this is audited on a non statutory basis by the importing country. Non statutory testing of imports of cold water shrimps and chicken meat from Thailand and chicken meat from Brazil were found to have higher than accepted levels of nitrofurans earlier this year. The findings resulted in more stringent testing regimes being imposed on imported meat from these countries.

Very few genetically modified plants have been released for general use in EU. A number of products are being grown experimentally under strict licence. The outcome of these field trials will influence government decisions on whether the products will be released on general sale. There is significant consumer resistance to these products and vociferous opposition from pressure groups such as Soil Association and Friends of the Earth. The chicken producers have recognised this opposition and have made the decision to only use soyabean for diets from non GM sources. How sustainable this will be in the long term is uncertain, but whilst it is available the UK producers will want GM free soyabean.

The world summit on climate change in Kyoto resulted in the UK government signing up to the Kyoto protocols and committing to the reduction in greenhouse gases. It is interesting that the biggest polluter on the planet, USA, did not sign up to Kyoto. As a result we all immediately put our businesses at a competitive disadvantage to the USA. The agreement has been implemented in the UK effectively by taxing energy sources to industry. The agricultural industry has not been given a derogation on this levy and so must pay unless they can reduce their energy use by approximately 13% in the 12 year plan. Most companies have seen the climate change levy as a challenge to reducing costs to the business by more efficient practices. Whether the total reduction in usage can be achieved without additional investment remains to be seen.

Welfare continues to be kept high on the consumer agenda by pressure groups such as RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming. The main issues are cages for commercial laying hens, broiler leg strength and broiler stocking density.

The EU directive on the welfare of laying hens stipulates that the installation of new or replacement conventional cages is banned from January 2003. In the original directive conventional cages were to be phased out by 2012. Within this the space allowance per bird has to increase from 450 sq cm to 560 sq cm from 2005. Germany unilaterally made the decision to phase out all cages by 2007. Switzerland and Sweden have already banned cages for commercial layers. Furthermore the future of the enriched cage (750sq cm/ bird, perches, nest and scratch area) beyond 2012 will now be up for public consultation in the UK. This despite the fact that government funded research ongoing into the welfare of birds in cages is being undertaken in several countries in the EU.

The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), a UK government advisory body has voiced concerns about broiler leg health. The poultry industry has been monitoring leg strength using gait scoring techniques and has demonstrated a year on year improvement in leg health. Despite independent review of the industry figures FAWC have not accepted the findings and a major government funded study on broiler leg health is about to commence in the UK..

At the present time there is no specific legislation covering the welfare of broiler chickens. A number of private member bills have been put before parliament in the UK but have failed due to lack of time. These bills have mainly focused on issues such as stocking density and light intensity. At the present time these issues are covered in codes of practice. Stocking density recommendations are currently 34kg/M2 in the Assured Chicken Production (ACP) scheme. However research work on stocking density is being undertaken at the University of Reading by Professor Dawkins. The ACP guidelines will be modified according to the recommendations of that study.

ASSURANCE SCHEMES

These have been introduced by a number of organisations to try and restore consumer confidence in food and the food production process. Consumer confidence in food has been severely battered by the numerous food scares in the last decade. The retailers took it upon themselves to champion the causes of the consumer during this period of low consumer confidence and the initial assurance schemes were primarily auditing requirements set up by the retailers to ensure that the producers conformed to their retail requirements and the retailer was able to demonstrate údue diligenceî.

The industry recognised the marketing potential of assurance schemes and also saw that they were spending a large amount of time and resources on the various audit schemes, each tailored to individual retailer requirements. The UK poultry meat industry took the initiative and formed a company, Assured Chicken Production, which would consolidate the various schemes under one umbrella. Persuading the retailers to sign up to the ACP scheme would produce cost savings in the assurance process simply by releasing some of resources required to manage the multitude of individual schemes. I believe some producers thought that the scheme might prove too arduous to producers outside the UK thus creating a barrier to imports. This has not proven to be the case. The ACP scheme has sister assurance schemes in other areas of agriculture e.g. assured beef scheme and the assured dairy scheme. Membership of all of these schemes allows the product of the farm/processor to carry the úlittle red tractorî logo. This logo is backed by the National Farmers Union, which lobbies on behalf of the UK farming industry.

The assured chicken production scheme outlines requirements on chicken meat production in a variety of areas. These include buildings, equipment, chick quality, feed quality, hygiene, drug usage and training of farm staff. The various sites are audited on a regular basis. Minor non-conformances on initial visits may not prevent membership of the scheme, but time scales are set for these non-conformances to be rectified. Major non-conformances will preclude membership.

Everninomycins, antimicrobials structurally related to oligosaccharides like Avilamycin were being developed for use in human therapy. The ACP took the decision to ban the use of Avilamycin as a growth promoter in its code of practice in 2000. This product, together with Flavomycin, was the last licensed antibiotic growth promoter available in the EU. . Chicken growers had started experimenting with alternative products such as organic acids and manno-oligosaccharides (MOS) products in feed. The comparative performance of avilamycin fed birds and Biomoss fed birds were favourable to Biomoss and so the industry felt comfortable about this decision. More recently there has been concern in the UK about increased use of therapeutic antibiotics to combat gram positive bacterial enteritis e.g. Tylosin, amoxycillin. The development of Everninomycins for human medicines has been halted and therefore ACP has taken the decision (August 2002) that Avilamycin can again be used under strict guidelines in chicken diets for welfare reasons. This decision will be reviewed in 12 months.

Egg producers have resurrected/relaunched an old brand, the Lion brand. This is in effect an assurance scheme for egg producers. The key message in the initial relaunch was that only eggs from chickens vaccinated against Salmonella enteritidis could carry the lion emblem. Since salmonella in eggs had remained in the media for over 10 years, from 1988 to 1998 this was an important message to get to the consumer to restore confidence in eggs. Other requirements of the lion code included registration of egg producing premises, full traceability, hygiene, time and temperature controls on eggs, shelf life guidelines, the lion mark on the shells and the ban on the use of canthaxanthin for yolk colour. The egg industry had researched the market and found that consumers particularly mothers were worried about eggs and health, and that modern convenience foods were considered to be more exciting. The industry, through the British Egg Industry Council invested £8,000,000 in advertising and relaunching the lion code. That was the equivalent to 3p on a dozen eggs. This was a serious financial commitment by the industry. This investment has reaped rewards. Previous health concerns regarding eggs were overcome, the lion marque was well recognised as a guarantee of standards and eggs were seen as nutritious and healthy. Most importantly the sales of eggs has increased. More advertising is planned to reinforce the lion marque but also to transform the image of eggs from boring, bland old fashioned foods to a contemporary meal solution. This will be achieved though various media including television, women's magazines, point of sales information and by directly targeting children, health professionals, opinion formers and using focus groups.

There is an interesting comparison between the lion code for egg producers and the ACP scheme for chicken producers. A recent survey by the British Egg Industry Council revealed a high recognition of the lion code compared to other assurance schemes. 77% of consumers questioned recognised the lion logo compared to 24% for the úlittle red tractorî ACP logo and 10% for úfreedom foodsî RSPCA logo. I believe this illustrates the difference between the promotional investment between the various assurance schemes: Invest and it will pay dividends.

In summary, consumption of poultry products will continue to rise on a year by year basis. However, the modern consumer is both complex and in some aspects well informed. The poultry industry needs to respond to the changing needs of this consumer, whether they are real or perceived. The industry needs to understand and engage pressure groups and opinion formers and match the public relations resources of these groups if it is going to win public support on key issues such as welfare and food safety.