The Public Service Association has fired another shot in its campaign against in-house quality control at meat processing plants.

It says the United States won’t be accepting imports from the plants that have replaced independent meat inspectors with their own employees, despite our Government saying it would.

National Secretary Richard Wagstaff says he received an assurance from the Government the US had approved the trials and agreed to keep taking meat.

“When we turned up on Monday, the American part of the trial was off.

"Our members at the plant were told ‘none of the meat from this trial can go to the American markets, because they’re not ok with the trial at this point.’

"We thought – ‘that’s not great.’"

Mr Wagstaff says compromising one of our largest markets is a huge risk.

"So they may well get permission from the American market but the point is they didn’t have the green light, it seems to me, when they decided to go ahead with the trial.

"They told us last week it was all go to start on Monday, when in fact they didn’t even know about the American opposition until Saturday.”

The US won’t accept meat from the AFFCO Imlay plant in Whanganui, where trial inspections have already started.