REPRESENTATIVES of a Teesside meat company have appeared in court charged with breaching meat hygiene regulations.

Cleveland Meat Company, which runs the abattoir on Yarm Road, Stockton, denies 36 charges of breaching regulations in a prosection brought by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

The charges relating to the disposal of parts of animal carcasses and how they are categorised.

Meat which is unfit for human consumption is dyed blue under FSA regulations. However witness Iago Souto, of the FSA, told Teesside Magistrates' Court that when he inspected the slaughterhouse he found old sheep heads in skips which had not all been dyed.

Simon Catterall, on behalf of Cleveland Meat Company, said that when the skips were tipped upside down into waste trailers the blue dye would tip down from the top to the bottom, covering all the meat.

The company supplies beef and lamb across the UK and Europe from its Stockton base.

The trial continues.