The new Lion code of practice has been completed and is scheduled to come into force this month.
It was expected to be distributed to subscribers as the Ranger went to press and was due to go live on February 27, replacing the existing code and all existing Lion code paperwork. "The new code is enforceable from February 27. At that point all existing forms have to be destroyed. People should use the new forms instead," said Mark Williams, chief executive of the British Egg Industry Council, who said the new code brought together a number of smaller amendments to the code that had been introduced in recent years.
The last full update was carried out in July 2004. Subsequent minor amendements have been incorporated into the new update, along with the new EU requirements for salmonella testing, which come into full force this year, and measures to improve traceability. The new code seeks to consolidate and improve upon what has gone before.
"Consolidation, simplification and clarification: they are the key things in the new code," said Mark.
The modern code recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, following its introduction in 1998 as one of the measures to help restore confidence in an egg industry that had suffered a severe crisis. Edwina Currie’s famous remarks about salmonella had inflicted terrible damage on an industry whose sales had gone into decline. Mark Williams says that without the Lion code we would now have no egg industry in this country. "Without the Lion code the egg industry in this country would have been finished," he said. "You only have to look at what happened in the 1990s. Egg consumption was going down by eight per cent every year. It didn’t look like stopping. It would have levelled out eventually, of course, but that would have been at a very low level. Huge swathes of the market would have been taken up by imports and we would not have had an industry left."
By 1998 - 10 years after Edwina Currie’s damaging remarks - there was still a very negative public attitude towards eggs, but the launch of the Lion code in November that year, along with effective advertising, finally turned the tide for the industry.
The Lion code has become one of the great success stories of the British agricultural industry. It is the envy of many other sectors of agriculture and, says Mark, "something that we in the egg industry are very proud of. It helped restore faith in the egg industry and to do that we had to ensure the code was very robust. We have achieved that through a team effort - everyone in the industry working together to show consumers that they can have faith in British Lion eggs."
By the time the code was launched in 1998 a vaccine against salmonella was available and vaccination became a cornerstone of the code. All birds destined for Lion egg-producing flocks are vaccinated against salmonella enteritidis using an approved vaccine. This involves about two million pullets being vaccinated each month, at a cost of some £4 million each year. A full hygiene monitoring programme, including hygiene swabbing, must be completed by pullet rearers before birds are taken onto the farm. Rearing flocks are tested for salmonella and all equipment and vehicles used for transporting pullets to the laying unit must be disinfected. Records of bird movement must be kept on the passport.
This year new EU salmonella testing regulations come into full force, although Lion introduced these procedures in August 2007 - nearly 18 months ahead of their imposition by the EU and the British Government. Keepers of laying flocks are required to follow a sampling and testing programme to identify the occurrence of salmonella on farm.
Self testing should be carried out every six months. External testing will be conducted every 18 months. Eggs from flocks confirmed to be infected with these bacteria will not be able to be sold as fresh shell eggs. They will not be able to be used for human consumption unless heat treated or pasteurised. The regulations have been incorporated into the new code.
The new code also seeks to improve traceability by revamping the Lion passport. When birds arrive at a laying farm for the first time a copy of the passport will now have to be sent to Lion for entry on the scheme’s database. This measure will ensure that the information on the database will in future be more detailed and more up-to-date. "It will improve flock details on what we are calling a ’live’ database," said Mark. "Eventually these details will be input electronically with the use of hand-held computers on site. We are trialing these at the moment."
Bio-security is also updated. "There have been a few AI problems since 2004. We have consolidated a number of things into the code. There is a very good article by one of our vets and there are also links to other sites," he said.
The new code will clarify a number of issues for egg producers. One example covers the use of on-farm feed mills. Mark says on-farm mills can be registered with Lion and used for the farm’s own stock. The feed cannot be sold to someone else, however, as Lion is covered under an agreement with UFAS.
Lion has also attempted to make the code more easy to use. Under the existing code, documents are divided into three separate parts - the code itself, the guidance notes which explain to producers what is expected of them and the separate audit forms. The new code brings all three parts together under one cover for convenience and simplicity.
