Volume 13: Industry Processes and Controls
3. Head-boning and brain removal
Legislative changes and developments in the process post-BSE
Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989 (the 1989 SBO Regulations)
The effect of the 1989 Regulations on the treatment of bovine heads
1990 MAFF Advice on bovine brain removal
Effect of the 1990 MAFF Advice on the treatment of bovine heads
Bovine Offal (Prohibition) (Amendment) Regulations (the 1992 Regulations)
Effect of the 1992 Regulations on the treatment of bovine heads
Specified Bovine Offal Order 1995 (the 1995 SBO Order)
The 1996 Order

Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989 (the 1989 SBO Regulations)

3.24 The 1989 SBO Regulations (or SBO ban) came into force on 13 November 1989. ¹ They prohibited the sale or 'use in the preparation of food for sale, for human consumption' of any Specified Bovine Offal (SBO). Bovine brain was included as SBO.

3.25 The 1989 Regulations also required the immediate staining or sterilisation of SBO. However, this did not apply to a brain which was still within a head that was going to be removed from the slaughterhouse to a specialist boning plant for the recovery of meat (other than SBO).

3.26 After removing the meat the head-boning plants had either to:

• sterilise or stain the skull (with the brain still inside); or
• remove the brain from the skull and then sterilise or stain the brain. ²

3.27 The definition of 'specialist boning plant' in the 1989 Regulations was limited to premises (not being a slaughterhouse or knacker's yard) where a business of removing meat from bones was carried on. This also excluded the premises of retail butchers.

3.28 Although the 1989 Regulations referred to removal of the brain from the skull, they were silent as to how this was to be achieved. No other instruction or guidance was provided to slaughterhouses or boning plants on the appropriate method of brain removal. The various methods which they did employ are described above. The removal of the brain could be performed:

• at the slaughterhouse, before or after the removal of the head meat by the slaughterhouse;
• at the slaughterhouse, prior to sending the head to a specialist boning plant or butcher for removal of the head meat; or
• at the specialist boning plant, before or after the removal of the head meat by the plant.

The effect of the 1989 Regulations on the treatment of bovine heads

3.29 The 1989 Regulations had a significant effect on the head-boning industry. Although brain was SBO, the rest of the head was not. However, if the brain remained in the head, the entire head had to be treated as SBO. Hence once the head meat had been removed, the head was of no value. Indeed slaughterhouses and specialist boning plants faced the prospect of paying renderers to collect heads rather than receiving income for them. ³

3.30 This prospect stimulated the practice of brain removal. As the Agriculture Committee of the House of Commons put it:

This practice was accentuated by the introduction of the specified offals ban: abattoirs perceived an economic advantage in attempting to remove the brain from the skull since, by removing the brain, they would have to pay renderers less to take the heads. ⁴

3.31 Removal of the brain at the slaughterhouse also made the head a more commercially attractive proposition for boning plants, which would then not have to deal with the disposal of any SBO. By February 1990, head-splitting at slaughterhouses was being described in correspondence to the Minister as 'fairly widespread practice in the South West'. ⁵

3.32 Some head-boning plants also began to remove brains from bovine skulls in order to avoid the restrictions imposed on the movement of entire heads. ⁶

3.33 When giving evidence to the Agriculture Committee of the House of Commons in June 1990, Mr Richard Cracknell explained the rationale behind the practice:

It has not been normal in our industry in the UK, until the last six months, for us even to consider splitting of heads. Specified offals have never really formed - and the very description of them as offals conjures up thoughts of kidney, heart, liver - good-quality offals. These are specified organs in which there has never really been a commercial trade in this country. The reason for splitting of heads - and all of us have looked at, and have experimented with, splitting of heads in recent weeks - is simply that the renderers are charging us £80 a tonne for removal of specified offals, the brain being one of them, and they are only charging us £20 to £50 a tonne for unspecified offals. So there was good commercial sense for looking at ways of removing the brain from the head. I think we have all come to the conclusion that in fact it is not worth the bother, and that we will have to send the head with the skull and the brain in it, with the proscribed offals. But that is going to cost us. At £80 a tonne, a skull probably weighs about 25 pounds, so that is 90 pence at least, and that is part of the carcass that we were being paid for; it went out with the bones until six months ago. So there is a loss probably of something around £1.30 at least on that . . . I would like to make it clear that the reason for head-splitting has been that separation. There has never really been a trade in brains. ⁷

3.34 Meanwhile, it appears that some butchers wished to continue to have the heads of slaughtered animals returned to them. ⁸ Butchers were not 'specialist boning plants' for the purposes of the 1989 Regulations. ⁹ As a consequence, bovine heads could not be returned to butchers unless the brain was removed first, and it appears that some slaughterhouses began to remove the brain so that the rest of the head could be provided to the butchers:

Furthermore, the practice of removing the brain from the skull appears to be a necessary one for many small slaughterhouses who undertake contract killing on behalf of butchers who demand the return of the bovine head. ¹⁰

3.35 Storage of bovine heads containing brains also posed problems, particularly for smaller slaughterhouses. This issue was raised by the Institution of Environmental Health Officers (IEHO) in a letter to MAFF dated 1 February 1990:

In smaller abattoirs adequate refrigeration facilities, capable of containing the bulk, is not available. Unrefrigerated storage, whilst acceptable in the cooler months of the year, will lead to rapid deterioration of the heads in the summer months with subsequent condemnation and loss of income to the butcher (for cheek meat). It is not practicable for small abattoirs to build further refrigerated storage for these heads and the loss of income could, in the long run, cause financial problems. ¹¹

3.36 In summary, removal of bovine brain was undertaken by some slaughterhouses in response to the 1989 Regulations for the following reasons:

• It enabled the remainder of the head to be sold to renderers, thus reducing the amount of SBO which slaughterhouses were required to pay renderers to dispose of.
• It enabled the return of heads to butchers who required the remainder of the head for cheek meat.
• It made the head a more commercially attractive proposition for boning plants, eliminating the need for them to deal with the disposal of any SBO.
• It reduced the cost of storing heads and transporting them to specialist head-boning plants.

3.37 An MLC survey in June 1990 of 309 slaughterhouses found that 81 per cent of bovine heads were despatched from abattoirs 'untouched'. Of the remainder, the only treatment in the slaughterhouse in the majority of cases was the removal of the cheek meat from the heads, leaving the brain in the skull to be sent out as proscribed offal. In only 33 slaughterhouses - 10.7 per cent of those surveyed, accounting for less than 4 per cent of British cattle slaughtering - was removal of the brain from the head of carcasses attempted. ¹² This survey did not, however, take accountof the incidence of head-splitting at the specialist head-boning plants to which some or all of the 81 per cent of 'untouched' heads were dispatched.

Possible contamination of head meat by bovine brain during transport of heads for boning

3.38 The presence of head meat on heads while they were transported to a head-boning plant or butcher raised the possibility of contamination of this meat with bovine brain material. The Inquiry heard that while the heads were in transit, brain material could leak through the captive bolt hole in the skull onto the head meat:

The leaking of the brain material through the stunning hole was quite evident at this, when this process was being done . . . It was quite obvious, we both observed this at the time, that brain material was leaking onto the cheek meat that was then going to be recovered for human consumption at the boning plant. ¹³

3.39 The Inquiry also heard evidence of heads being transported with other meat, raising similar concerns about possible contamination of this meat in transit.

The heads were taken away for further processing from our abattoir. I think the only problem that worried me about it was the contamination of those heads with other meat shipped at the same time, and also contamination from the captive bolt hole in the head as well, the contents would come out of the hole. I tried to be very strict in the way they were transported, those heads, but unfortunately you were not always able to supervise it. ¹⁴

1990 MAFF Advice on bovine brain removal

3.40 The evidence obtained by MAFF about the contamination hazard which arose when the brains were being removed from skulls prompted a review of the practice. While extensive consideration was being given to banning brain removal, MAFF favoured the provision of guidance to local authorities rather than amending the 1989 Regulations to control the practice or ban it completely. The handling of this issue by MAFF and by SEAC is examined in vol. 6: Human Health, 1989-96 and vol. 11: Scientists after Southwood.

3.41 On 14 June 1990, Mr Keith Meldrum, the Chief Veterinary Officer at MAFF, sent a telex to all Divisional and Regional Veterinary Officers, Regional Meat Hygiene Advisers and Divisional Executive Officers ('the 1990 MAFF Advice') advising that:

As a result of a detailed evaluation of practices currently in use in slaughterhouses and boning plants the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has concluded that bovine head meat must be recovered from the intact skull before the brain is removed. ¹⁵

Effect of the 1990 MAFF Advice on the treatment of bovine heads

3.42 A summary by Mr Hutchins on 5 April 1991 of returns from a survey of SBO-handling in slaughterhouses that processed cattle disclosed that about 20 per cent of them were removing brains on site, and around 70 per cent were reported to be sending intact skulls to specialist boning plants. The remaining 10 per cent appeared to be sending the intact skulls to renderers, but not all of them were complying with staining, sterilisation or permit requirements. ¹⁶

3.43 Mr Hutchins noted that various methods and implements were being used to remove the brains from the skulls, but that these did not appear to be causing any significant problems. There was generally a high degree of compliance with the 1989 Regulations. However, a reference to head meat being 'generally removed prior to brain removal' suggested a high but not total compliance with the 1990 MAFF Advice. ¹⁷

3.44 Follow-up surveys on compliance with MAFF's Advice, carried out in May and June 1991, revealed that there had been 'a fall in the number of abattoirs sending skulls to boning plants and a corresponding increase in abattoirs removing the brains themselves'. ¹⁸ In some cases the brain was being removed before the head meat was harvested. The 'undesirability' of this was discussed with the operators and the local authorities.

Bovine Offal (Prohibition) (Amendment) Regulations (the 1992 Regulations)

3.45 The 1992 Regulations came into force in England and Wales on 12 March 1992, and three days earlier in Scotland. These amended the 1989 Regulations in the following ways:

• they prohibited the removal of any meat for human consumption from the head of a bovine animal after the skull had been opened or the brain had been removed; ¹⁹
• they prohibited the removal of the brain from the head of a bovine animal in a slaughterhouse or boning plant except in a specific area which at no time was used for food for human consumption; ²⁰ and
• they permitted those bovine heads from which the brain had not been removed to be moved under a movement permit to premises of a processor or a place of storage before transfer to a processor. ²¹

3.46 No comparable legislation was introduced for Northern Ireland, but similar standards were adopted and enforced administratively by the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland. ²²

Effect of the 1992 Regulations on the treatment of bovine heads

3.47 The 1990 MAFF Advice had now been given statutory force: if head meat was to be removed for human consumption, it had to be harvested before the brain was removed from the skull. This meant that heads could no longer be returned to butchers for the recovery of head meat, since they were not 'specialist boning plants' under the legislation and heads containing brains could not be sent to them.

3.48 Slaughterhouses were continuing to send heads to specialist plants for boning. A survey undertaken in January and February 1995 identified 24 specialist head-boning plants with a combined weekly throughput of 37,710 heads. Based on the average national weekly cattle slaughter figure at that time (57,000), it was estimated that the throughput of the ten largest head-boning plants accounted for 60 per cent of all slaughtered cattle. ²³

3.49 Some slaughterhouses appear to have continued removing brains in the period following the introduction of the 1992 Regulations. ²⁴ Presumably this brain removal and the storage of split heads (which was also observed) was performed to enable the remainder of the head to be rendered as non-SBO material. ²⁵

3.50 Between 31 May and 23 June 1995, the State Veterinary Service (SVS) undertook national surveillance of all the slaughterhouses and head-boning plants processing bovine animals, in order to ascertain the extent of compliance with the SBO controls. The results confirmed that at least one slaughterhouse was in breach of the 1992 Regulations by removing brains before boning the heads. ²⁶

Specified Bovine Offal Order 1995 (the 1995 SBO Order)

3.51 On 15 August 1995, the 1995 SBO Order came into force. Under this Order, brain removal for any purpose other than veterinary or scientific examination (ie, to enable cheaper transport of heads or to permit skulls without brains to be rendered) was no longer permitted. ²⁷

3.52 Following the introduction of the 1995 SBO Order, the slaughterhouse was required to ensure that the head of any animal 6 months old or over was separated from the rest of the carcass. ²⁸ The slaughterhouse was then required to:

• treat the entire head, including the brain, as SBO; or
• remove the meat from the head on the premises without disturbing the skull and then treat the whole skull (including the brain) as SBO; or
• keep the head separate from all other animal material and send it to a specialist head-boning plant. ²⁹

3.53 Head-boning plants had to be approved by MAFF and, upon the arrival of heads for boning, had to record details of the number of heads delivered to the premises, the date of delivery and the source of the heads. Upon removal of the head meat, the skull had to be treated as SBO and be kept separate from other animal material, stained and then disposed of by an approved rendering plant, collection centre or incinerator. ³⁰

3.54 However, provision was made in the 1995 SBO Order for a new definition of 'skull', which was intended to go some way towards meeting the expense which slaughterhouses and boning plants faced in disposing of the head as SBO to renderers:

The skull was defined to exclude the bones of the lower mandible, the hyoid apparatus, and those anterior to a transverse section between the posterior molar teeth of the upper jaw and a point 30 mm anterior to both orbits. This definition reduced the weight of bone which had to be disposed of as SBO, so reducing costs, and was included on my recommendation after Mr Bradley and I had visited a head-boning plant to assess the practicability and safety of the technique. ³¹

3.55 In November 1995, as part of its ongoing surveillance, the SVS made 26 visits to specialist head-boning plants to assess the level of compliance with the SBO controls. At only one visit were the practices considered unsatisfactory. ³² However, in late November 1995, a veterinary officer in Leicester noted that a renderer in the area was receiving 'occasional unstained heads, including brains' amongst its incoming raw material. ³³

3.56 It appears likely that the concerns regarding head-splitting and, in particular, the possibility that the practice might lead to contamination had an adverse effect on the demand for head meat. Mr Michael Wildman, on behalf of Sainsbury's supermarkets, told the Inquiry:

I seem to recollect that we have always precluded the use of head meat in any of our products. I seem to recollect at the time there was a requirement that the head be split and the brain tissue be removed. I can only conclude there was a concern that the material may be spread to the meat. ³⁴

3.57 The reduction in demand for head meat and the increase in slaughterhouses performing their own head-boning had a detrimental impact on the business of specialist head-boning plants.

The 1996 Order

3.58 The Specified Bovine Material Order 1996 ('the 1996 Order'), which came into effect on 29 March 1996, is just outside the terms of reference of the Inquiry but is included here to complete the story. The entire bovine head (including the brain but excluding the tongue) became 'specified bovine material' (SBM). The Order regulated SBM in a similar way to that in which SBO was regulated by earlier legislation.

3.59 The 1996 Order affected disposal of heads by slaughterhouses. The entire head, including the head meat, had to be stained in the slaughterhouse and sent intact to renderers for disposal. The harvesting and sale of head meat, once a significant part of the slaughtering industry, ended upon the introduction of the Order.

3.60 As a result, head-boning no longer had a role in the meat industry. Ms Janet Nunn, Director of Food and Drink in the British Retail Consortium, told the Inquiry:

You have to remember of course that there are always job implications in due course, people like the Head Boners' Association closed down as people were not taking head meat and so on. ³⁵