Scottish beef group calls for industry support

The National Beef Association (NBA) has called for understanding as segments of the industry criticises the Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and its policies.

Scotland's beef industry generates nearly GBP550 million per year and it must be supported by a properly funded, central organisation to help secure a long term future for the industry, according to NBA Scotland.

The NBA is alarmed at the myopic calls by groups within the sector which seek either to focus a disproportionate amount of Quality Meat Scotland's shrinking resources on direct marketing - or challenge outright the need for a 90p per head increase in the slaughter cattle levy.

QMS works hard at making its GBP3.8 million a year levy income cover a great deal of ground extremely effectively but without an income rise it will soon be forced to cut back on increasingly important activity, said Iain Mathers, chairman of NBA Scotland.

NBA Scotland points out that the Chartered Institute of Marketing has calculated that an average of 7.19 per cent of annual turnover is usually spent by the retail, or manufacturing, sectors exclusively on marketing.

But QMS raises only the equivalent of 0.75 percent of beef sector turnover through its levy and still manages to deliver promotional and development results on its behalf, said Mathers.

It is naïve to think that a business as important as beef is to Scotland can move forward without giving what is needed to properly fund QMS, he said.