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'Mad sheep' advice may hit mutton sales

1/12/2002

HALAL butchers in the North West are concerned that statements on a possible risk of mad cow disease in sheep may hit mutton sales.

They fear a warning from the Halal Food Authority that there is a "theoretical risk" of BSE in older sheep could cause consumers to shun mutton in favour of younger sheep meat like lamb.

Eating mutton is extremely popular in the British Asian Muslim community which makes up five per cent of the UK population but consume 75 per cent of meat from sheep older than 12 months.

The owner of the National Halal Food Group Mohammed Yaqoob that has a butcher's shop on Manchester's curry mile said he thought the warning would have an affect on mutton sales.

"With BSE and foot and mouth the meat industry has not had a happy time recently and public trust has been undermined. Some consumers are bound to stop buying mutton but its consumption is something of a generational thing. First generation Muslims are big consumers but second generation often prefer lamb. I think the future lies in this direction."

Butchery worker Amjad Hussein at the Rochdale Halal Meat Centre, Milkstone Road, Rochdale said 100 per cent of meat sold at the shop was mutton. "I have never heard of this warning before now, but I think it will have a big affect on trade," he said.

The Halal Food Authority emphasised they were not advising Muslims to stop eating mutton but said as a general rule meat from younger animals is a better health option. The president of the authority, Masood Khawaja said that avoiding eating older sheep would reduce any possible risk.

He said: "As these (older) animals have eaten feed in the past, which contained meat and bone meal, which was likely to be the most possible cause of BSE in cows, a theoretical possibility exists only among old sheep."

In fact the danger of old sheep having eaten animal feed made of meat and bone is not the central issue. This form of feed was banned in the early 90s and there are very few sheep, if any, alive today who are old enough to have eaten the suspect feed.

The Food Standards Authority say no case of BSE in sheep has been discovered in Britain, but add they cannot rule out the "theoretical possibility" of it existing, after scientists successfully infected sheep with BSE by injecting them with brain tissue of 'mad' cattle. Scientists have also found that BSE can be passed from mother to offspring so sheep could still be around today incubating the first case of BSE. The longer an animal has BSE the more infectious it becomes thus the special warning concerning older sheep.

Food authority spokeswoman Sameena Khan said: "We are simply providing the public with an informed choice. There is only a theoretical risk of BSE in sheep - the disease has never been discovered naturally in them and many consumers may see the risk is so minimal that they will go on consuming mutton believing that they are far, far more likely to be killed crossing the road."

The advice from the halal authority comes after a meeting with the chairman of the Food Standards Authority, Sir John Krebs. He told them: "The FSA is not advising against the consumption of sheep meat. However, there may be a risk and you, the consumers, have a right to be aware of this. If BSE were in sheep there would be a higher risk in older animals. We know that the Muslim and some Asian communities are relatively large consumers of mutton."

Sheep have long been susceptible to a disease in the same category as BSE called scrapie but unlike BSE there is no evidence that it can 'jump species' from sheep to humans.