SUMMARY OF LION QUALITY CODE OF PRACTICE
The Code of Practice for Lion Quality eggs covers breeding flocks and hatcheries; pullet rearing; laying birds, including both hygiene and animal welfare requirements; on-farm handling of eggs; distribution of eggs from farm; feed; hen disposal; packing centre procedures; advice to retailers, consumers and caterers; environmental policy and enforcement. The Lion code has EN45011 accreditation.
Registration and traceability
To guarantee traceability, all breeder farms, hatcheries, rearing and laying farms, feed mills and packing centres involved in the production of Lion Quality eggs must be approved. All Lion Quality hen flocks must be accompanied by a passport certificate and all Lion Quality egg movement has to be fully traceable.
Breeding flock controls
Hygiene controls for breeding flocks and hatcheries include hygiene swabbing of hen houses, regular microbiological monitoring of parent flocks and hatcheries, with slaughter of any salmonella-positive flocks. see www.bepa.org.uk
Vaccination programme
All birds destined for Lion Quality egg-producing flocks are vaccinated against Salmonella enteritidis using an approved vaccine. This entails approximately 2 million pullets being vaccinated each month, at a cost of around £4 million per 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.
Role of the BEIC
The role of the BEIC is 4-fold.
1. Lobbying on behalf of the UK egg industry - BEIC lobbies Government, MP’s, the European Commission, MEP’s and other bodies, on issues affecting the egg industry e.g. welfare of laying hens, WTO, egg marketing legislation, IPPC, etc. BEIC is recognised as the representative voice of the UK egg industry.
2. Administration of the Lion Quality Scheme - The ‘commercial’ arm of the BEIC is the Lion Quality Scheme which currently accounts for 85% of egg output in the UK. Lion Code Subscribers adhere to the Lion Code of Practice which sets higher standards of both food safety and animal welfare than is currently required by UK or EU law.
3. BEIC also finances advertising and publicity campaigns via the British Egg Information Service (BEIS) and answers media questions on behalf of the UK egg industry.
4. BEIC also finances research and development into issues which affect the industry.
Funding of BEIC
BEIC is wholly funded by a voluntary levy. This is collected from the egg packers and producer/packers who subscribe to the Lion Quality Scheme.
Subscribers are required to pay a levy to BEIC, which is based on their packing station throughput of all grade ‘A’ eggs, or on hens kept. For 2008 this has been set at 11p per case (of 360 eggs), or £8.71 per 100 laying hens. New subscribers are also required to pay a one off joining fee of 30p/case, or £23.75 per 100 laying hens.
Lion Code Auditing and Licensing
The Lion Quality Scheme requires the registration of all breeder farms, hatcheries, pullet rearers, laying farms, packing centres and feed mills. This ensures that there is full traceability of all hens, feed and eggs. All potential new Subscribers must have their packing centre(s), rearing farm(s), laying farm(s) and feed mill(s) audited to ensure that they meet the required standards. The cost of the audits will be covered by yourself and there must be no non-conformances. Please also note that to gain approved status of laying farm(s), all laying hens on the farm(s) must be fully vaccinated against Salmonella.
The ‘Lion’ is the registered trademark of the BEIC and before Subscribers must be authorised to use it, they are required to enter into a Licence Agreement with the BEIC over its use. This Agreement then has to be registered with the Trade Marks’ Registry. As this is an expensive procedure we have to make an initial once-only charge of £200.00 for the making and registration of the Agreement.
