The year ahead will undoubtedly deliver a continuing squeeze on business margins, with the cost-of-living crisis which closed 2022 leaving all food sector players with significant issues to face over the coming 12 months.

Production, processing, and distribution costs are all rising at a time when consumers are looking to secure maximum value for money for everything they buy, including food. Further Government intervention to curtail the additional increases in utility and fuel bills, already forecast for 2023, is surely necessary.

SAMW member businesses are routinely operating on tight margins, so the room for manoeuvre is limited. It only takes a minor shift in market demand or pricing within a small segment of our business to create pressures across the whole sector.

Late on in 2022, for example, the collapsing value of sheepskins globally left a serious hole in business budgets for all sheep processors. We are hoping for a quick reversal in sheepskin demand over the coming weeks, but there are no guarantees in this business.

For all that this sounds like a well-worn comment, the fact that a successful red meat supply chain depends on selling all carcase components, remains as true today as it always has.

Equally, and just as obvious, the more you spend the more you need to earn to balance the books. Buying quality livestock alongside spending on such essentials as energy, transport, labour, and new equipment, while hugely demanding when prices are rising are also an inevitable part of running a normal business. We accept this but are frustrated by other ‘non-normal’ impacts on our industry.

Government action is urgently required, for example, to increase the supply of skilled/semi-skilled workers into the agri-food supply chain.

As for ongoing investment, designed to make businesses more efficient as they journey towards net zero, it would help enormously if the time window attached to the latest Food Processing Marketing and Co-operation Grant Scheme was extended.

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Currently, member businesses must complete funded projects within one fiscal year to obtain grant support. This is hard to achieve due to difficulties in sourcing materials and getting contractors on site before the 2023 cut-off date of March 31.

Member businesses are deeply committed to hitting the country’s sustainability and net-zero targets, while being mindful at all times of the need to also deliver food security for the nation.

Other efficiency opportunities could be achieved, with the right thinking, support and cooperation. Improving access to local processing sites for crofters and farmers in the more remote parts of Scotland, for example, requires a more coordinated approach than we’ve seen to date. A little pump priming from the public sector could have a big impact on this issue.

Being faced with considerable regulatory charges in the midst of everything else, isn’t easy to take, especially when it seems that other non-meat food producers are more favourably treated.

We will keep working on this with FSS to alleviate the current compliance cost burden, seeking to reach agreement on innovative solutions to the deployment of regulatory resources in line with the needs of producers, processors and consumers.

Watching supermarket shelves run empty of certain foods in recent months, such as eggs, is a warning sign which highlights the fragility of all parts of the UK food chain. While we have great confidence in the quality and resilience of our own sector, particularly Scotland’s extensively reared pasture-fed livestock, it would be dangerous to assume red meat is immune from future supply pressures.

Balancing production, processing and retailing requirements will not be easy in 2023 but we remain upbeat and determined, always seeking to drive forward on behalf of Scotland’s red meat sector in close co-operation with our all-chain partners.