Irish consumers may soon be able to acquire T-bone steak again following new advice released in Brussels yesterday by the European Union Scientific Committee.
Following a sharp increase in BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) during 2000, the sale of beef containing the backbone of animals aged over 12 months was banned a year ago in many European countries, with the age limit effectively outlawing T-bone steak.
For example, Italy's beloved Tuscan Fiorentina cut, which traditionally comes from cattle aged between 17 and 22 months, was banned, as was the Irish T-bone.
The EU Scientific Committee now says that the BSE risk in animals born after January 2001 - when a ban on all meat-based animal feed came into effect - is very low.
"The European Commission considers that this advice opens the possibility to start discussions with the member-states on raising the age limit for the removal of the vertebral column in cattle born after the feed ban. This discussion will have to take account of evidence on the effective enforcement of the ban."
EU officials said it had not yet been determined what the age limit should be and that cattle would have to be born after January 2001 at the earliest.
However, if the limit was set at 18 months, for example, T-bones could be back on sale in shops before the end of the year. Irish beef farmers have the capacity to bring animals to slaughter weight in that period.
The scientific advice released yesterday also said that the low BSE risk of animals born after the meat-and-bone meal ban was dependent on the ban being effectively implemented and enforced.
Meanwhile, there was further good news for the Irish beef industry yesterday when the first consignment of beef for the Egyptian market was loaded for export to Egypt, which had banned the importation of all beef from Europe since December 2000.
The ban on Irish beef was lifted late last year but, because of price and technical reasons, no beef was shipped to Egypt, which had been our largest non-EU market in the late 1990s, when the trade was worth over €300 million annually.
Egyptian vets, who arrived here on Sunday, supervised the preparation of a small consignment of beef prepared by Agri-Trading, the international subsidiary of Keypak, which is exporting the beef to Cairo on a trial basis.