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Dawn Meats has announced a reduction in the minimum number of days cattle must remain on the final Bord Bia Sustainable Beef and Lamb Assurance Scheme (SBLAS) farm for farmers to qualify for the in-spec bonus payment.
This will see the number of days animals must remain on the final quality assured farm before slaughter reduced from 60 to 30 days.
The change comes into effect on all Dawn Meats processing sites from Monday 17 February.
“The change follows extensive consultation with domestic and international stakeholders and recent meetings with IFA leadership.
“The 70 consecutive qualifying days on SBLAS-approved farms remains in place,” a spokesperson for Dawn Meats said.
‘Progress’
Dawn Meats chief executive Niall Browne said: “At Dawn, we have worked with our customers to find areas where it is possible to make changes to our in-spec bonus payment conditions.
“I’m pleased that as a result of our discussions with customers and farming organisations we have been able to make this progress.
“Steer and heifer cattle aged under 30 months from Bord Bia SBLAS-assured farms remains a key point of differentiation for Irish beef and a priority requirement of our European customers and main international export markets.
"We will continue to focus additional resources on this category of livestock in our sourcing and marketing strategies in the coming years to support continued premiumisation of key markets for quality Irish beef,” Browne said.
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