Following the recent publication of a joint letter by the Department for International Trade and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the British Poultry Council welcomes Government’s commitment to uphold British food standards in trade deals.
British Poultry Council, Chief Executive, Richard Griffiths, said:
“The UK has spent a long time establishing and implementing standards that provide our citizens with safe, wholesome, and nutritious food, and that are applied to both home-grown and imported produce. We are delighted that the Government has once again committed to not compromise on our high animal welfare and food standards in trade negotiations, and to not allow import of food produced to lower standards under a trade deal.
COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of self-belief and dignity that comes wrapped up in food. We simply cannot afford to lose control of how we feed ourselves as a nation and undermine British food producers at a time when we must take matters of food security into our own hands. Government’s commitment to maintain our standards and protect them from dilution in trade deals will play a pivotal role in ensuring nation’s access to affordable British food grown to high standards from farm to fork.
Our high animal welfare, food safety and environmental standards are worth protecting. The British poultry meat industry looks forward to working with the Government and members of parliament to ensure any future legislation lives up to Government’s commitment and nurtures the trust and confidence that our citizens have in our food. We want to work together with parliamentarians to ensure that Britain’s competitiveness is not compromised so that we can maintain a healthy trading relationship with our biggest trading partner – the EU (70% of UK’s trade in poultry meat is with EU).”
