Meat association files court papers over government testing on imports
It’s not often that the government gets accused of being over-zealous in its food safety measures‚ but that was the claim made by the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters in papers lodged with the High Court in Pretoria. The association’s David Wolpert said the Department of Agriculture‚ Forestry and Fisheries has‚ since May 2016‚ insisted on testing all consignments of frozen raw meat entering Durban’s port for bacteriological contamination‚ despite this not being scientifically or legally warranted. The bulk of the frozen meat entering Durban’s port is chicken, mainly from the EU (currently on hold because of the avian flu outbreak) and Brazil; mechanically deboned meat from Brazil; pork from the EU; and lamb from Australia‚ Wolpert said. Because the department lacks the capacity for that amount of testing — a 1,000% increase in samples that have to be taken‚ transported and tested — Wolpert argued that meat consignments were being held up in the port pending the test resul...
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