To assess any system that provides goods or services, the National Consumer Council has developed a number of consumer criteria to judge how well they perform from the consumers' point of view. They include price, safety, access, choice, information, redress, efficiency, equity, public accountability and consumer representation. When it comes to food, consumers are naturally interested in the price, quality, safety and choice of food products available to them. This presupposes that all have access to a secure supply of staple foods: a fundamental right of all consumers.

Quality covers many aspects such as the variety, content, composition, nutritional value, taste, freshness and appearance of foods and recently, animal welfare has become associated with quality in the perception of consumers. Safety issues in the 1990s include additives, veterinary drug residues, pesticide residues, microbiological contamination and biotechnology.

It is only in the past few years that most retailers have taken specific interest in the actual production or growing of basic products such as meat and other produce. The food scares of the late 1980s including BSE in cattle, pesticides in produce and the control of Salmonella in chickens and eggs has emphasized the need for both retailers and manufacturers to control and monitor these building blocks of the food chain. Tesco ensures that manufacturers meet all criteria necessary to produce consistent high quality safe legal food by ensuring that they adhere to the criteria set down in the Tesco Quality Management Manual.

The manual emphasizes the need for training in both hygiene and competency in the work place, the control of raw materials and the use of HACCP as the cornerstone of producing safe foods. It requires the use of internal audits by the manufacturer to show that this system works. In addition, Tesco approves all new suppliers, issues codes of good manufacturing practice, and product specification and monitors adherence to the quality management system by the use of audits at a level dependent on the product and the supplier's past performance.

However, quality management cannot be seen simply as involving only the manufacturer. Tesco have incorporated the HACCP concept into both our distribution and retail systems. In excess of 25 000 staff have been through an examinable basic food hygiene course and all staff are provided with a wide range of documentation to ensure total understanding of their important rôle in the food chain. Again for both distribution and retail, auditing programmes have been organized.

The consumer can and does play an important and crucial rôle in maintaining product quality and safety. Tesco aims to assist this by both accurate and informative packaging and a wide range of leaflets at communication centres.

Producer marketing of extensive livestock is undergoing rapid change as the political economy adjusts to new global orders and social and commercial pressures condition the nature of the market. British producers are responding to the challenges and opportunities of the market place through a business and marketing approach which embraces farm assurance, collaborative marketing, partnership in the food chain and professional business management. The National Farmers' Union is at the centre of developments in these important areas. This strategy provides the best basis for the maintenance of a viable rural economy.

The economics of production of the livestock sector is heavily influenced by changes to price and support systems but also by the standards set under both domestic and European Community (EC) legislation in the food safety, consumer protection and animal health and welfare areas. This paper addresses these latter issues.

In the last 3 years or so the incidence of BSE has led the government to enact several measures to protect both animal and public health. The measures taken and regular publication of information on the disease and research undertaken, has helped restore public confidence in animal products. Increased record keeping and for example, bans on the feeding of ruminant derived protein to ruminants have been designed to eliminate the disease but costs have been borne by the industy. Increased incidence of Salmonella also resulted in much new legislation to which changes have been made as new evidence has emerged. The poultry industry has nevertheless faced new burdens as a result of measures to tackle the disease and restore consumer confidence in poultry products.

In the context of the completion of the EC single market the coverage of harmonized trade rules, many of which have existed since 1964, is being widened and rules for domestic and intra-Community trade are being aligned. However, the EC will continue to face the challenge of preventing the spread of disease without frontier controls. This has led so far to new measures, including surveillance arrangements for certain diseases and also to the organization of a disease control infrastructure.

The government has given high priority to the promotion of high animal welfare standards. There is also heightened public interest in this issue and legislation has been enacted to phase out certain types of farming systems and require prescribed standards in the handling of livestock. Other initiatives are now on the EC agenda including, for example, the proposed battery hens directive and further rules on the transport of animals.

Other issues discussed in the paper are the implications of the Food Safety Act 1990, EC measures on fresh meat hygiene and their enforcement and general food hygiene rules. There has also been much public consultation on the labelling of food. All of these measures have, or could have, significant implications for the livestock sector and these the paper will address.

BSE was first discovered in November 1986 and by July 1991 about 60 000 cases had been confirmed in Great Britain with a low incidence being reported in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Switzerland and France. The origin of the extended common source epidemic appears to have been food containing meat and bone meal which contained the causal agent. Recycling of infected cattle waste was significant in increasing exposure, at least from the time of the first unrecognized clinical appearance of the disease in 1985. Small numbers of five species of Bovidae in British zoos, domestic cats, a puma and a cheetah have also succumbed to a newly described spongiform encephalopathy. It is anticipated that as a result of the imposition of a ruminant food ban in countries affected by BSE new infections from food have ceased and the incidence of BSE will fall to zero provided there is no other source of infection. Effective controls are in place in Great Britain and Northern Ireland to protect animal and public health. These include disease notification, compulsory slaughter of suspect animals and incineration of the carcasses, a ban on the feeding of specified bovine offals from cattle over 6 months of age or protein derived from them to man, or any species of animal or bird, and a ban on the feeding of ruminant protein to ruminant animals. Genetic studies are still in progress but there is no epidemiological evidence supporting breed predisposition and bovine PrP gene polymorphisms have not been linked with disease occurrence. The lessons from BSE include: the need to retain an animal health surveillance system to detect new and emerging diseases; a strong veterinary research base in unconventional agent disease; and a powerful epidemiology discipline with access to computerized data recording systems, analytical and modelling expertise. Major changes to the composition or processing of animal food, particularly that derived from sources which are not natural for the consuming species, should be carefully monitored for safety before being permitted.

There are several sources of information on food-borne illness in the United Kingdom. These include laboratory and clinical reports and the results of special studies and surveys.

The data are collected, analysed and published, amongst other places, in the Communicable Disease Report and the Public Health Laboratory Service/State Veterinary Service (PHLS/SVS) Salmonella Update. In the latter, animal and human data are brought together. Reported cases of food poisoning represent a small proportion of the total load of disease but are valuable as an indication of trends. The data produced from these sources in relation to salmonellosis, listeriosis, campylobacter and E. coli 0157 infection are described, as are some data about the costs of human salmonellosis. Possible approaches to the reduction of these economically important human diseases are described against a background of the existing advisory and legal structures.

Information and legislation on the regulation of residues of veterinary drugs within the European Community (EC) is aimed at harmonizing the actions by member states to improve intra-community trade and provide meat and meat products safe for consumption in the EC. The information comes from many different sources. The aim of this paper is to coordinate the separate information.

The key areas of interest are: use and abuse of veterinary drugs in meat production; EC Directive 86/469 on residues and associated legislation; development of methodology for residue analysis; preparation of reference materials (RMs) through the research programme of the Bureau of Community Reference (BCR); the establishment of maximum residue limits (MRLs) by the Committee for Veterinary Medicinal Products (CVMP); the rôle of the Community and National Reference Laboratories (CRL, NRL); the rôle of the Reference Manual on Residues of Veterinary Drugs.

The relationships between the above are discussed; in particular the important rôles of the CRL and the Reference Manual to disseminate and coordinate information.

Recent media and consumer interest in the quality of food purchased in supermarkets and other outlets, is placing pressure on the agricultural industry to improve the quality of the product produced. The farmer has in the past been encouraged to produce quantity irrespective of quality, whereas today the emphasis is very much on the latter, with pressure to reduce quantity. Companies supplying the farming community must react to this changed situation, particularly if they are to be able to administer due diligence under the Food Safety Act.

Dalgety Agriculture has thus embarked upon a quality initiative throughout the company involving training of staff on total quality management, registration of premises with the British Standards Institute under BS 5750 scheme and the adoption of the hazard analysis using critical control points (HACCP) technique to evaluate the areas of the company's operations where faults could most easily occur. The company has concluded that an approach to quality must be all-embracing involving all facets of our operations. The aim is to aid the company's farming customers in the attainment of a quality product for the customer of that farm.

In a free market economy the consumer and not the producer usually dictates the product and the means of production. Meat production however involves, as a third party, the animals themselves whose rights are not protected by the free market. To ensure and improve the welfare of farm animals it is necessary first to define and analyse the factors that contribute to an animal's sense of health and well-being. The first stage of analysis can be embraced by the five freedoms which define standards of nutrition, comfort, health, security and normal behaviour. Right action to ensure the five freedoms requires research, legislation and education. This paper suggests reasons why the contribution of research and legislation to improved welfare has, so far, been small. It further suggests that proposed future legislation may be too crude an instrument to ensure improvements in something so complex as an animal's perception of the world. The most promising approach is to educate the consumer towards an understanding of animal production that is more in tune with reality and less susceptible to imagery, be it the false ‘farm fresh’ image of the producers or the ‘factory’ image of the anti-farming lobby. My simple plea is for honesty in animal production, an honesty that recognizes the realities of pain and death but which allows both the farmer and his animals to live with dignity.

In this paper it will be argued that the relationships between welfare and product quality are not commonplace because processes within the animal intervene between substrate and product which reduce farming practices to a common level that is subordinate to the animal's metabolism. Nevertheless there are four ways in which compromised welfare can be linked to product quality: (1) product quality which is influenced by acute stress; (2) ante-mortem trauma occurring in parts of the animal which are edible; (3) disease states which leave lesions or taints in the edible product; and (4) product quality which is dependent on the long-term cumulative effects of exercise, lack of exercise or poor husbandry conditions.

From this classification and the examples to be given in the paper it will become clear that some practices which compromise welfare can lead to poor product quality but there is little evidence to suggest that improved welfare practices benefit product quality. Nevertheless welfare improved products could be of better quality simply because more effort and attention is put into their production. If the same care and expenditure were to be put into systems where welfare was not the main goal, would product quality be any different?

The conclusions that will be drawn from this paper are that: (i) practices which compromise welfare can lead to poor product quality, but there is little evidence that improved welfare benefits product quality; and (ii) modern labelling is suggestive instead of being explicit and as such it does not lend itself to promoting welfare improvements in a cognizant manner.

Early research in man at the end of the fifties and beginning of the sixties indicated that the composition of dietary fat influenced plasma cholesterol levels. In effect this research showed that plasma cholesterol was raised by saturated fatty acids (SFA), was lowered by polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and was not influenced by monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA). Within the SFA it was also observed that the greater the chain length, the lesser the cholesterol raising effect. A quantitative relationship between the change in blood cholesterol (ΔC) resultant from changes in the percentage energy from SFA (ΔS) and PUFA (ΔP) was established as ΔC = 1.3 (2ΔS − ΔP). For the ensuing tivo decades this association dominated nutrition education programmes with the message that ‘saturates or animal fats raise blood cholesterol and polyunsaturates or vegetable oils lower blood cholesterol’.

In the 1980s it became evident that the two main fractions of blood cholesterol yielded different risks for coronary heart disease. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol raised the risk and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol lowered the risk. Earlier work on the qualitative effect of dietary fat was now repeated to examine the direction of change of the LDL and HDL subfractions of plasma cholesterol. Broadly speaking these data showed that SFA raised LDL cholesterol and had little effect on HDL cholesterol. PUFA lowered LDL cholesterol but when the intake was high, also lowered HDL cholesterol. Whilst this summarizes events leading up to current thinking on dietary fats and blood cholesterol, it is likely in the near future to be linked to another area of research involving the antioxidant vitamins and pro-vitamins (vitamin E, vitamin C and β-carotene). A growing body of data in the literature indicates a protective effect of antioxidant vitamins in epidemiological trials.

Notwithstanding these findings, it is likely that dietary advice will continue to seek a lowering of SFA intake. PUFA intake will be capped and MUFA intake will be a more acceptable alternative. However, with increasing emphasis on antioxidant vitamin status, such advice is likely to be coupled with advice on increased consumption of fruit and vegetables.

Consumer demand for meat is strongly influenced by sensory aspects of meat quality, particularly visual appeal and eating quality. One of the most important of these traits is tenderness which is notoriously complex in origin and hence difficult to control. Potential interactions between diet, pre-slaughter handling, chill rate, muscle shortening during chilling and, therefore, toughness are presented to illustrate the complexity of controlling the trait. The final eating quality result is far from predictable. The Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC) has identified the enhancement of eating quality of beef and pork as important objectives for industry. It has produced and tested blueprint specifications which aim to summarize the ‘best state of the art’ regarding eating quality at each stage of the production and processing chain. The strengths and weaknesses of this approach are discussed. The standard blueprint specification for pork produced an improvement in tenderness of 0.6 scale points (P<0.001, scale = 1 to 8) over random retail purchases of pork chops and a significant reduction in variance. However, considerable residual variation remains, providing the opportunity for greater improvements to be made in the future.

Farm Assured Scotch Livestock (FASL) was established by a small planning group in 1990 with representatives of all sectors of the Scottish meat industry. The agreed objective is to accelerate the ability of the Scotch Beef and Lamb industry to meet consumer requirements in the 1990s.

This is being achieved through a farm assurance scheme with standards designed to increase consumer confidence in beef and lamb. Participation is voluntary and already over 1000 farms have joined the scheme. High standards coupled with rigorous independent inspections provide credibility and formal links to the Scottish Consumer Council have been established.

The principal criteria are: traceability of stock; staff competence; adherence to welfare codes; food composition and storage; housing and handling facilities; medicines and veterinary treatments; essential records.

The farm assured product is now being actively promoted by independent and multiple retailers with considerable interest from the expanding export markets — particularly in Northern Europe. Current developments are aimed at linking farm assurance to meat quality through the Guild of Scotch Quality Meat Suppliers. Standards for auction markets and livestock transport are being established to complete the quality assurance message from farm to plate.

The topography and climate of Wales dictate that there is no realistic alternative to livestock production; sheep rearing is a virtual necessity. The output value of the Welsh sheep industry, with approximately 5.5 million breeding ewes, is well in excess of £200 million.

Welsh Lamb Enterprise (WLE) was established in 1982 by a group of lamb producers in Wales who recognized the importance of efficient promotion and marketing. In 1985, WLE launched a Quality Assurance Scheme to identify Premium Quality Welsh Lamb, and to ensure a regular supply of Welsh lamb that was guaranteed to be of a consistently high specification. In setting up the scheme, there was close co-operation with Food From Britain to ensure that it had a meaningful standard.

All participating abattoirs have to comply with strict regulations and undergo rigid independent inspections. Only lean carcasses of the highest quality are given the stamp of approval. Under WLE specifications, Premium Quality Welsh lambs must not be above fat class 3L and have conformation levels of E, U and R. Certified carcasses are clearly identified, and retail packs of fresh, chilled meat must carry a ‘use by’ date and full instructions for domestic storage. A network of wholesalers has been established so that orders for Premium Quality Welsh Lamb may be processed rapidly for immediate delivery anywhere in England and Wales.

During its first year of operation, approximately 67 000 lambs were accepted into the Quality Assurance Scheme; currently, the number is closer to 500 000.

The establishment by the Real Meat Company of a new ‘brand’ of meat where the quality, purity and welfare are worked up to a standard rather than down to a price is the embodiment of an ‘alternative production system’ for livestock. Any production system needs a market. As a fully independent as well as new company, expansion, development and occasionally survival have depended entirely on how this market can best be served.

It is possible to create a secure alternative production system. What is more difficult is to identify correctly the size, loyalty and expectations of the market and find a route to serve them that is convenient. The modern shopper likes easy shopping. No customer likes to take negative attributes into account when choosing a product. Invariably perceived by many as a green get-rich-quick scheme, the controls, attention to detail, complexities of the few retail routes for meat and then portrayal of the ‘message’ to the public have made the Real Meat Company trail at times slow and always arduous. Tor those who support the concept, including the founders, the progress, however difficult, is always rewarding.