Local beef to feature on BBC TV

NAMIBIA is well known for its top-quality beef and its traceability scheme to trace its beef from ‘farm to fork’ so consumers know exactly where the juicy steak on their plate comes from.

International recognition of the Farm-Assured Namibian (FAN) Meat scheme, as it is known, will now be beefed up through the BBC television programme ‘Cooked in Africa’, with a film crew now in Namibia to shoot footage for another episode. Over the past six years Cooked In Africa Films has created nearly 100 episodes and 45 hours of television programming that have been broadcast worldwide.’The television cooking programme is currently produced in Namibia for the retail giant Woolworths’ Summer Campaign in search of good food,’ said Monja Viljoen, Communications Officer at Meatco yesterday.’Meatco being the exclusive supplier of free-range beef to Woolworths South Africa, our product will receive international acclaim on Justin Bonello’s ‘Cooked 5’ television series that will be broadcast on the DStv BBC Lifestyle channel later this year,’ Viljoen added.The campaign includes a combination of marketing elements that will ultimately portray good food messages to consumers with emphasis on free-range products like the FAN Meat scheme. It is illegal in Namibia to add hormones when rearing cattle and Namibian beef is thus free from hormones and other added substances.Three years ago, Woolworths in South Africa started importing FAN Meat from Namibia. The FAN Meat scheme was approved by Cabinet about ten years ago and has been implemented since then in a phased manner. The software used for managing the scheme has been extensively upgraded and a new phase where ear tags are used for livestock identification and tracing has been introduced.According to the Meat Board of Namibia, consumers the world over are becoming increasingly aware of the need for safe foods and are becoming more sophisticated in their demands for assurances in this regard. ‘A new approach by Namibia’s clients demands a holistic look at production and marketing with every link in the production chain – from pasture to packaging – being inspected and certified,’ the Meat Board says. Farmers registered with the FAN Meat scheme are responsible for administrative functions like animal identification and record keeping of animal movements. The quality of meat can nowadays only be partially evaluated by visual inspection, with the safety of food becoming an integral part of quality. ‘The public wants to know exactly what is consumed and therefore the history of what is presented on the plate has become instrumental in the determination of quality,’ according to the Meat Board. Knowledge of the origin of specifically meat products is a necessity for the consumer. In the event that the origin cannot be identified, the product is unwelcome, particularly on the European shelf.