Volume 13: Industry Processes and Controls
5. Knackers, hunt kennels and maggot bait farms
Legislative changes and developments in the process post-BSE
Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989 (the 1989 SBO Regulations)
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (No. 2) Amendment Order 1990
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Order 1991
Animal By-Products Order 1992
Specified Bovine Offal Order 1995

5.26 The following Regulations and Orders are also considered in the chapters on slaughterhouses (Chapter 2), renderers (Chapter 6) and animal feed (Chapter 7).

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

5.27 These Regulations introduced the concept of SBO, which was defined as the brain, spinal cord, spleen, thymus, tonsils and intestines of an animal slaughtered in the UK. ¹ The Regulations prohibited the sale or use of SBO in the preparation of food for human consumption (the human SBO ban). The object of the 1989 Regulations was to prevent SBO from entering the human food chain. In the case of knacker's yards, that object had already been achieved by the Food and Drugs Act 1955 and the Meat (Sterilisation & Staining) Regulations 1982, which treated all knacker meat as unfit for human consumption.

Voluntary animal SBO ban

5.28 On 9 November 1989, in response to the Regulations banning SBO in food for humans, most animal feed manufacturers agreed to adopt a voluntary ban on the inclusion in their feeds of any MBM derived from SBO. A similar ban had already been recommended by the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association in June 1989. ² We describe the effect of the voluntary animal SBO ban below, when dealing with the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (No. 2) Amendment Order 1990.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (No. 2) Amendment Order 1990

5.29 This Order, implementing the animal SBO ban, came into force on25 September 1990. ³ Its purpose was to extend the prohibition on the use of SBO in human food to feed for all animals and poultry. See vol. 5: Animal Health,1989-96 for a full account.

5.30 The Order extended the definition of 'animals', previously restricted to ruminants, to all mammals except man, and to any kind of non-mammalian four-footed beast. ⁴ 'Specified Bovine Offal' was defined in the same terms as it had been in the human SBO ban. ⁵ The effect of these provisions was therefore to prohibit the sale or supply of SBO, feedstuffs containing SBO or protein derived from SBO for feeding to animals and poultry, or the direct feeding of such material to animals or poultry. Since the Order adopted the same definition of SBO as in the 1989 Regulations by reference to an animal 'slaughtered in the United Kingdom', it did not apply to SBO from fallen stock or, arguably, from animals put down on the farm rather than slaughtered in the slaughterhouse. Fallen stock comprised a significant proportion of material handled by knacker's yards and hunt kennels.

Pet food

5.31 The 1990 Order prohibited both the feeding of SBO to animals in pet food and its sale as pet food. The 1990 SVS survey of knackers and hunt kennels indicated that knackers did not sell the offal classified as SBO, either to pet food manufacturers for use in manufactured pet food, or as an end-product for pet shops and retail buyers. ⁶ However, it was reported that there was in any case a 'decreasing demand for pet food from knackers following the media publicity about BSE and, in particular, the cat encephalopathies'. ⁷

5.32 The 1990 SVS survey showed that about 25 per cent of hunt kennels fed offal classified as SBO to their hounds (generally spinal cord left in the carcass), a practice not statutorily prohibited at the time. ⁸ As late as November 1995, a MAFF memo noted that a number of hunt kennels were 'deliberately infringing' the animal SBO ban by feeding whole spinal columns to their hounds, with seven of them continuing to do so even after being warned by SVS officers. ⁹

Rendering for animal feed

5.33 Even before the 1990 Order, feed compounders who adhered to the voluntary animal SBO ban insisted that the MBM supplied to them should not be made from knacker meat. This remained general practice after the 1990 Order. Mr Iain Crawford, former Director of MAFF's Veterinary Field Service, said in oral evidence that:

I believe that the renderers said anything coming from knackers would be SBO, the whole lot would be regarded as SBO. They could not separate it, or at least they did not want to separate it. It was worthless material, all of it. ¹⁰

5.34 This would mean that all knacker meat was either rendered separately as if it was SBO, or rendered with SBO from other sources, and the derivative MBM buried or incinerated. However, MAFF noted that some renderers were charging different amounts for knacker waste (see below). This suggests that not all renderers were treating all knacker waste as SBO.

5.35 The most dramatic impact of the animal SBO ban on knackers was economic. Profitable markets for MBM derived from SBO were now non-existent, and tallow derived from SBO was usually of low value. As renderers began to treat knacker waste as SBO, they started charging knackers instead of paying them for its removal from the knacker's yards. Some declined to accept any material from fallen stock at all. In addition, the knackers had to employ extra labour to remove the SBO when dressing the carcass. In a statement to the Inquiry, Mr C E Ashworth, on behalf of LASSA, implied that charges were levied by renderers from the time the 1989 SBO Regulations came into force. ¹¹ The practice appears likely to have begun in response to the voluntary animal SBO ban, which was introduced in the same month. In 1991, MAFF summaries of returns on the disposal of carcasses and waste from knacker's yards and hunt kennels reported that some renderers were charging between £40 and £200 per tonne of knacker waste, depending on the renderer and whether it was SBO or not. ¹² The earliest of these summaries of returns notes that 'charges for the collection of waste material seem to be increasing in some areas', which implies that renderers had been levying charges for some time. ¹³

Effect of charges by renderers

5.36 In an attempt to recover some of their increased costs, knackers, having previously paid farmers for their cattle carcasses, now began charging farmers to remove carcasses from their land. The charges for cattle ranged from nothing in some cases for fresh carcasses, up to £60 per animal for days-old carcasses. For calves, the charges ranged from £0 to £40. ¹⁴ Throughput at many knacker's yards decreased about this time, by up to 80 per cent in one case, and there were reports of knackers closing down. This decline was attributed to the reluctance of farmers to pay knackers' collection charges. ¹⁵ Reports were received by MAFF of carcasses either being dumped outside knackeries or hunt kennels, or simply being left unburied on farms or roadsides. ¹⁶

5.37 By 1991, MAFF inspections of knacker's yards and hunt kennels had been stepped up to a monthly basis, ¹⁷ even though the SBO Regulations were still confined to cattle that were slaughtered. Mr Crawford told the Inquiry that local authorities also 'treated the knackers as though they were covered by the regulations in respect of SBOs'. ¹⁸

5.38 Another trend identified during 1991 was a move by increasing numbers of hunt kennels towards acting as knackers and collecting carcasses at a lower rate than that being charged by knackers. ¹⁹

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Order 1991

5.39 The 1991 BSE Order came into force on 6 November 1991. It consolidated all BSE Regulations made under the Animal Health Act 1981 - ie, provisions implementing compulsory notification, slaughter and compensation, the ruminant feed ban and the animal SBO ban. It also amended the definition of SBO to include SBO from fallen stock. Thus knacker's yards and hunt kennels were prohibited from selling or supplying SBO from fallen stock for feeding to animals and from feeding such SBO directly to animals. ²⁰

5.40 No evidence was received from knackers about changes in practices brought about by this Order, and evidence received from MAFF is conflicting. Mr Iain Crawford indicated that MAFF inspections were not in fact concerned with separation of SBO from non-SBO material, on the basis that it would all go to renderers and be treated as SBO anyway. ²¹ On the other hand, a memo from Mr R J Lawrence to Mrs S Townsend, both of MAFF, dated 26 October 1992, noted a deficiency in compliance with the SBO Regulations at hunt kennels, namely, failure to separate SBO. ²²

Animal By-Products Order 1992

5.41 The Animal By-Products Order 1992 came into force on 1 January 1993 and regulated the disposal of animal by-products. ²³ Animal by-products were defined as any carcass or part of a carcass not intended for direct human consumption, but not including animal excreta. This definition included all waste material from knackers, hunt kennels and maggot bait farms.

5.42 The Order required knackers, hunt kennels and maggot bait farms to dispose of certain classes of potentially hazardous animal by-products (SBO) by rendering in approved premises, incineration or burial. Other, less hazardous, types of animal by-product were regulated by the Order, but an exception was made to allow their distribution to or use in knacker's yards, hunt kennels and maggot bait farms. For example, these premises could still sell these by-products as pet food or feed them to the hounds. The Order also placed conditions and restrictions on the movement of animal by-products, and it required hunt kennels and maggot bait farms to be registered with MAFF, for the first time.

Specified Bovine Offal Order 1995

5.43 This Order, made under the Animal Health Act 1981, came into force on 15 August 1995. ²⁴ It replaced and extended the previous provisions relating to SBO in the Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989 and the BSE Order 1991. The measures introduced by the 1995 Order included the requirement that SBO removed from knacker's yards, hunt kennels or maggot bait farms be stained with Patent Blue V, unless it was intended for non-food or non-feedstuff purposes, or for research purposes. Sterilisation was no longer a permissible alternative to staining. In addition, SBO had to be prevented from coming into contact with any other animal material while on these premises, and had to be disposed of in accordance with the Order. The Order prohibited the removal of the spinal column in any place other than a slaughterhouse (see vol. 5: Animal Health, 1989-96).

5.44 MAFF did, however, take a 'pragmatic approach' to the staining rules, and decided that:

. . . if SBO material is going to be incinerated on the hunt kennel or knackery premises immediately after removal then it need not be stained. But if it is going to be stored on the premises for a period, even if it is going to be incinerated there later, then it must be stained to prevent any possibility of it becoming mixed up with other non-SBO waste. ²⁵

5.45 The Masters of Foxhounds Association told the Inquiry in a written submission that:

. . . some Hunts have installed their own incinerators. However, these are expensive both to put in and to run, and planning and licensing requirements mean that this is not always possible. ²⁶

5.46 MAFF's summaries of returns also showed that some hunt kennels were installing incinerators in which to dispose of SBO, but did not reveal how many had done this.