Day 098 - 07 Mar 95 - Page 39
1 Some cattle carry what is called a CID, a Cattle
2 Identification Document, and on this it actually states the
3 farm of birth, OK, and then various other pieces of
4 information which I do not really know. What we can do is
5 we can trace a carcass to the farm from which we bought it
6 or via the market from the farm -- to the farm which the
7 market got it from.
8
9 Q. Why do some cows have these CID farms and not others?
10 A. It is a fairly -- reasonably recent legislative
11 development. I am not quite sure of the reason for that.
12
13 Q. So it is going to be used more and more now?
14 A. I can only see it increasing, yes.
15
16 Q. What about five years ago, was there a similar system, any
17 kind of system, in operation then?
18 A. I do not know.
19
20 Q. Have you ever traced the animals back to what farm they
21 have come from?
22 A. Yes.
23
24 Q. You have. Why was that?
25 A. You may remember, earlier we spoke about the phenomenon
26 of this beef being dark if the animal is stressed at all.
27 When we -- if we discover at the carcass stage that there
28 is an animal in this condition, while we can trace it, we
29 actually trace back to see if we can find any, sort of,
30 common denominators throughout our suppliers -- as yet
31 really to no avail, I must admit.
32
33 Q. So you do not, generally speaking, check up on the
34 conditions of the farms?
35 A. Personally, no. We have buyers who go to the farms but
36 there is at the present time no sort of audit of those
37 farms, no.
38
39 Q. When you say "buyers" you mean people in Midland Meat
40 rather than people like, say, McKey?
41 A. Cattle buyers, yes, cattle buyers.
42
43 Q. You said yesterday that this dark -- is it dark and dry?
44 A. Dark, firm and dry, DFD.
45
46 Q. It does not happen as much with cows, or it is not so much
47 of a problem with cows?
48 A. It is not so much of a problem with cows, no.
49
50 Q. Is it noticeable at all in cows?
51 A. In my experience, not really, no, but cow meat by its
52 nature is darker anyway.
53
54 Q. Right. So you cannot really tell with cows?
55 A. There is a way of telling with cows, yes.
56
57 Q. There is a way?
58 A. Yes.
59
60 Q. But it is much more difficult or much more complex or
