Beef ban is lifted but fears of BSE will still affect livestock hauliers
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• by Guy Sheppard UK beef exports are to resume on 1 August following a three-year ban, but a quick return to former business levels for livestock hauliers has been ruled out because of continuing fears about BSE.
The Meat 8/, Livestock Commission (MLC) predicts that global exports are likely to reach 5,000 tonnes in the first year compared with 246,000 tonnes in 1995, of which 191,000 tonnes went to the Continent.
Trevor Jones, managng director of Ruthin-based livestock haulier LE Jones, says it would need a major scare about the safety of beef produced in another country for Britain to win back its market share.
Cattle exports accounted for about 25% of Jones's turnover before the ban was imposed in March 1996. Although the company's 20 livestock trailers have been under-utilised since then, Jones says alternative non-livestock work has been found. But he adds: 'We would want to get back into it because we invested heavily in trucks and trailers over the past 10-12 years." MLC spokesman Ray Barrowdale says St Merryn Meats in Probus, Cornwall is, to date, the only company to apply for an export licence. 'What a lot of people donl realise is that conditions under which beef can be exported are very, very stringent,' he says. You have to designate a plant to do it through and that plant can't be used for anything else. '