Meat factories failed 12% of all inspections carried out on overhead track weighing machines, while 29% of weighbridges in marts failed National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) inspections last year.

The overhead track holds the hook carrying the animal carcase in meat factories and 66 inspections were carried out across beef, sheep, poultry and pig factories last year. “The inspection process is both announced and unannounced,” a spokesperson for the NSAI told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“We will try to accommodate business deadlines, so will not go into inspect on slaughter days.”

Failure reasons can include broken seals, instrument modification or inaccurate weighing where a machine is out of tolerance.

“Where ones are found out of tolerance, they’re removed from trade use immediately,” the NSAI said. “The instruments were re-verified and put back into use within 20 days.”

Scale weight

The scale weight must be within a 0.1% range of accuracy to pass the NSAI inspection.

The NSAI also conducted 77 inspections on mart weighbridges in 2018. Some 22 weighbridges failed the inspection, with five weighbridges specifically found to be inaccurately weighing livestock.

Inaccuracies

Given the nature of mart trade and their dependence on commission at sale, it is unlikely that marts would benefit from inaccurately weighed animals.

Factories or marts who fail inspections cannot be named unless they have been convicted under the Metrology Act, and no convictions have occurred in the last five years.

IFA livestock chair Angus Woods said: “Farmers getting shortchanged on carcase trim or weights is an outrage and totally unacceptable.”

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