THE island’s Meat Plant has failed an inspection by Tesco for a second time.
But bosses at the government-owned abattoir say they remain confident they are on track to supply Tesco again – although it will be the end of June at the earliest before Manx meat is back on the shelves at the Lake Road supermarket in Douglas.
Isle of Man Meats chairman Graham Crowe described the situation as a ‘wake up call’ for the plant – and said he hoped that approval would be given to supply not only Lake Road but other Tesco stores and also companies that manufacture products for the retail giant.
Manx meat hasn’t been stocked at the island’s Tesco store since February after an unannounced inspection by the retailer highlighted concerns about standards of auditing, some of the equipment and the physical state of the abattoir. This prompted fears the plant could lose this contract altogether.
Following changes carried out at Tesco’s request, including the replacement of a metal detector, technical and agriculture manager Sheelagh Johnson and the local sourcing team returned to the plant 10 days ago to carry out a further inspection.
But this latest inspection failed to give the plant a clean bill of health for its auditing standards. There remains no issue over quality or hygiene standards.
Mr Crowe said he half-expected it not to pass. ‘The process is more convoluted than we originally thought.
‘This has been a wake-up call. We were aware the Tesco’s food and manufacturing standards are among the highest in the world.
‘Things that were identified at the unannounced audit have been put in place but there are things that are going to take longer. Tesco want to be shown compliance records over a period of time.’
Mr Crowe said that the plant was scheduled to be refurbished 15 years after it opened but this never happened. He said talks with government had been ‘positive’ and hoped plans for an upgrade could be announced soon.
Environment, Food and Agriculture Minister Phil Gawne MHK said: ‘There are clearly on-going issues and it is a shame that this could not have been resolved more quickly.’
A spokesman for Tesco stated: ‘We are continuing to work closely with the supplier to resolve any outstanding issues. Maintaining high food safety standards is extremely important to Tesco – our customers expect nothing less.’
It is understood the contracts with Tesco and Shoprite account for 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the meat plant’s output.
Shoprite chief executive Andrew Thomas said: ‘Shoprite is open seven days a week for the sale of Manx meat. We’ve been selling it for 40 years, and we look forward to selling it for the next 40.’