9 RECOMMENDATIONS
9.1 The Scottish Government should invite the Food Standards Agency Scotland ( FSAS) to produce guidance on the labelling of pork and pig meat products as "Scottish" and in doing so encourage processors to disclose the origin of the main constituent(s) of the product. This is particularly important where imported product is being processed in Scotland or the rest of the UK and then labelled as Product of Scotland/ UK. The FSAS should also encourage all parts of the pork supply chain to follow FSA Guidance on labelling regarding Country of Origin.
9.2 The Scottish Government, the FSAS and QMS should consider co-hosting a seminar for retailers and food service industry to promote best practice for labelling of Scottish meat, including pork. This could include featuring some smaller, local producers.
9.3 The Scottish Government should discuss with FSAS how more local authority resources can be made available to carry out more thorough checks on potentially misleading labelling of pork and pig meat products, such as use of Saltire on products which are not of Scottish origin.
9.4 The Scottish Government should fund a Scottish consumer survey to specifically measure awareness of Scottish consumers to higher welfare and quality standards in Scotland than in other parts of EU.
9.5 The Scottish Government should investigate sources of alternative funding that could be made available to Quality Meat Scotland ( QMS) to ensure it has sufficient funds to carry out longer promotions of pork and pigmeat products.
9.6 The Scottish Government should consider encouraging Quality Meat Scotland to carry out further promotions on the use of cheaper cuts of pork such as cheek, brawn, pork belly strips/roast for slow cooking, and consider new product development for speciality sausages. Campaigns should be piloted, for example in a few schools, before wider promotions to ensure the marketing budget is used to best effect.
9.7 The Scottish Government should consider encouraging QMS to produce a video clip for in-store/canteen display to show the benefits of keeping pigs in higher welfare standards. One major retailer has successfully trialled video footage of the various chicken production systems at point of sale to further inform the consumer before they make their choice. As a result, sales of free range chicken dramatically rose. The same approach could be used for Scottish outdoor pig keeping systems, followed up by footage of growing pigs in straw yards.
9.8 The Scottish Government (together with FSAS) should investigate the cost to the Scottish pork supply chain of the recent recall of Irish pork and use this to indicate the benefits of having country of origin labelling and a fully traceable system such as Specially Selected Pork.
9.9 The Scottish Government should consider how to make best use of the Food Processing, Marketing & Co-operation Scheme to support the costs of investment in new facilities for the processing of Scottish pork and the costs of developing stronger collaboration throughout the pork production, processing and marketing chain.