Rural butchers are backing the prosecution of a home kill operator in Northland for selling illegal meat.
A Whangarei man was fined $2250 after admitting selling more than 70kg of unregulated meat to a local bakery.
The bakery was also being prosecuted by the Ministry for Primary Industries.
Chair of Federated Farmers Rural Butchers group Haydn Cleland said it strongly supported any actions to stamp out the illegal sale of uninspected meat, which he said undermines food safety measures and the position of rural butchers who provide home kill services for farmers and other livestock owners.
"We go out on farm and kill for the person who owned the animal, so we kill for lifestylers and farmers and the meat killed on the property has to go back to that property.
"It cannot be sold or bartered, it has to be consumed by the people who owned the animal, unless it's gone to a registered abattoir, been inspected by vets and stamped."
