A compliance sting by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Coromandel uncovered a lot of compliance, and no need for the sting.
Operation Nevada was carried out over two days in mid-August, involving more than 50 MPI compliance officers visiting sale yards, farms, butchers, fish shops and food premises.
The officers were checking that fish and meat were sourced correctly, that sale yards and farms were complying with the national animal identification and tracing scheme and animal welfare requirements and that food stores knew about regulations about feeding waste to pigs.
MPI Waikato/Bay of Plenty district compliance manager Brendon Mikkelsen says he was pleasantly surprised to find nearly everyone doing the right thing.
He says there will be some low level advisory action mainly in terms of an educational follow-up and the ministry will also continue its work in the animal welfare sector in terms of visits to sale yards and farms.
But Mr Mikkelsen says some people working in food stores weren't 100% sure of the biosecurity regulations around feeding food scraps to pigs.
He says there was a reasonable awareness, but some were uncertain.
Mr Mikkelsen says the MPI website has information on this and people should not be feeding meat to pigs.
