Scotch Premier Meat has launched a new range – Select – to offer customers the best of the best and introduced special incentives for producers to attract more local cattle.
Date:
Tue, 06 Dec 2011
Source:
ANM Group
ANM Group:
website
Select is a superior range with full Scottish provenance and will use the finest cuts from the very best cattle to produce an exceptional selection of meat products.
Scotch Premier is already renowned for producing excellent traditional quality meat to customers around the world and has been a Royal Warrant holder since 1979, supplying meat to Her Majesty the Queen.
The new Select range will deliver the best meat, hand picked to customers’ requirements with far higher trim specifications along with narrower weight and grade bands.
The cattle used will all be Scottish born, bred and slaughtered, using only the best steers and heifers from recognised beef breeds. The new range will be offered exclusively to independent retailers and the export market.
Malcohm Hetherington, the general manager at Scotch Premier Meat, said: “Quite simply, this new range raises the bar and offers customers an even more outstanding level of quality and consistency.
“Our highly skilled team have taken trim specifications to new levels of excellence, which will help save time and wastage for the top quality independent butchers, caterers and delicatessens that we deal with.”
David Fleetwood, managing director of the ANM Meat Division, said: “This new range is the culmination of months of hard work by our staff. Scotch Premier already produces fantastic quality meat and this will be the best there is.”
There are also changes to the Scotch Premier procurement policy, aimed at attracting more local cattle, particularly from Aberdeenshire, across the whole calendar year.
As a result, the maximum threshold weight for cattle before penalty deductions are levied has been raised from 420kg to 450kg. The threshold for bulls has been raised from 400kg to 420kg.
The current 2% handling charge has now been capped at £19.50 per animal. Under the old charge, the producer of a 350kg animal would have had to pay a handling charge of around £24.50. The average weight of the cattle processed at Scotch Premier over the year is 345kg.
Scotch Premier’s statutory levies along with classification, insurance and inspection charges have also been reduced from £7.73 per animal to £6.50. This means producers will now pay total charges of £26 per animal compared to an average charge of £32.23.
The firm’s insurance policy, which until now only covered clean cattle of certain grades, has now been extended to cover all clean cattle, regardless of weight and grade and suckler bulls up to 16-months.
The new initiative will cover all clean cattle up the age of 36-months and suckler young bulls up to the age of 16-months. Although cows over 36-months will still face the current arrangement, Scotch Premier is the only company in Scotland that does not deduct the industry norm £8 per head brain stem handling charge.
AN ANM members’ premium has also been introduced to tackle the acute shortage of fatstock in the North-east between July and September. Members who sell the firm cattle in July or September will receive a £5 per head premium and a £10 premium in August. There will also be no penalty deductions for clean cattle aged between 30-36 months.
Alan Craig, the chief executive of the ANM Group, said: “We are looking to attract more local cattle on a more consistent basis across the entire calendar year and these incentives will benefit the majority of our livestock suppliers.
Scotch Premier is part of the ANM Meat Division, which is owned by the ANM Group, one of the UK’s largest and most diverse farmer-owned co-operatives with 7500-members and based at Thainstone Centre, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire.
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