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Beef factories are facing a shortage of replacement parts for critically important grading machines, the Irish Farmers Journal can reveal.
German company E+V technology installed 23 VBS2000 grading machines in 2004 in Ireland and seven in Northern Ireland in 2011.
Each beef plant relies on just one machine to carry out automatic grading.
Camera
The analogue camera which photographs and helps grade the carcase to give an accurate price to farmers is no longer produced and only 20 remain in stock.
“The cameras are not produced anymore for the old machines,” Axel Hinz, owner of E+V Technology told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“We have about 20 left in stock.”
He added that not all but “most of the plants in Ireland have bought a spare camera.”
“It’s not an emergency but to replace the old machines in the next 12 months would be reasonable.”
E+V Technology has just concluded a year-long trial of new grading machines with the Department of Agriculture. The machines use digital instead of analogue cameras and Hinz said results from the trial showed that technological advances gave more “consistent” grading.
Accurate
“The new machines are slightly more accurate, based on the trials that we have done with the Department,” Hinz said.
The new grading machines are in operation in the Netherlands and have just been approved for use in Belgium. Hinz said there are also up to eight currently in operation in factories in England.
Last week, Cormac Healy, head of Meat Industry Ireland, told the Beef Summit in Ballinasloe that the results of the grading machine trial should be released by the end of May.
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