The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries is making changes to the Meat Inspection Regulation to create new licence categories, and to allow more modernized inspection approaches. The changes come into force on October 1, 2021.
The updates are in response to consultation feedback regarding the challenges facing BC’s meat industry, including capacity issues such as accessing slaughter services and cut-and-wrap businesses to process meat, and a lack of skilled labour. The Ministry received feedback from the public, producers, industry and stakeholders, and heard there is strong support for modernization and increasing access to local meat.
For more information on the most recent consultations regarding the September 2020 Rural Slaughter Modernization Intentions Paper, please refer to the Modernizing Rural Meat Production in B.C. What We Heard report.
For more information regarding the upcoming regulatory changes, please refer to the program website.