Cheap Pork!

Dick_Turpin99

The next time you pick up the cheapest piece of pork (or any meat product) at the supermarket, or cut-price hamburger just take a look at the label to see where it was produced (not packed).

There is every chance that it was imported from a country with low/non existent hygeine standards & low/zero animal welfare.......if you take a read of this link you will see what I mean about South Korea where they currently have Foot & Mouth disease and how they are dealing with it

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=086_1300057764

Absolutely sickening!!!....do you think the purchasers for the supermarkets or fast food chains care about this?.....as long as there's cheap food on the shelf thats all they care about

Gothicfairy

Not much of a shock is it ? If the meat is that cheap then surely that would point to low/zero welfare issues as taking care of livestock properly requires money and with the market being what it is most can not afford to spend that amount of money for the chance of little to no return.
Just look at the superstores..cheap meat sells because people want a bargin but your free range organic super duck (say) can cost up to £30 (there was one in the co-op yesterday) and who is going to buy that ?

TV chefs have been complaining about this for years and nothing has changed.

fluffnutter

To be fair, it's not the supermarkets or fast food chains that necessarily want cheap food... it's the consumer! Shops just reflect demand (although it's a bit more complicated than that because shops can create demand too). But cheap food sells because people want to buy cheap food. *shrugs*

Money_User

fluffnutter wrote: »

To be fair, it's not the supermarkets or fast food chains that necessarily want cheap food... it's the consumer!

Exactly.

!!!!!!_Turpin99 wrote: »

Absolutely sickening!!!....do you think the purchasers for the supermarkets or fast food chains care about this?.....as long as there's cheap food on the shelf thats all they care about

But it's your fault, you're the one who wants cheap meat thats why they have to buy it in!

shaun_from_Africa

as long as there's cheap food on the shelf thats all they care about

If you were having a celebration and fancied a bottle of champagne, you could pop along to your local supermarket to buy one, but it would be very unlikely that you would be able to pick up a bottle of Krug Grand cuvee or similar. (approx selling price about £100 a bottle), although I'm sure they would have plenty of far cheaper stuff available.

Why would the buyers for the supermarkets fill the shelves with top quality champers, knowing that probably 99% of their customers would never buy it, and they would be lucky to sell 1 bottle a week?
They would buy in the cheap stuff knowing that this is what their customers want, and I'm sure that is there was a massive demand for top class champagne, it would be available in all major supermarkets.

In the case of fresh meat it's even more important to get it right. If they order 50 Kg of top quality free range pork at £20 per Kg and it doesn't sell, they have to bin the lot.

fluffnutter

It also depends very much on where you shop. I shop in Waitrose. It's pretty difficult to actually get poor quality meat there and much of their meat only comes from British suppliers. No doubt it's a bit more expensive than some meat you could buy elsewhere but you get what you pay for. The people who do care about animal welfare and decent food production processes are already making the choice to spend a little more money to ensure the quality is better. Those that continue to buy cheaper meat either don't care, or simply can't afford to spend more (although I'd suggest eating meat less often and buying better quality when you do). It's not because the message isn't out there. People have been talking about animal welfare standards for years.

Dick_Turpin99

Money_User wrote: »

Exactly.



But it's your fault, you're the one who wants cheap meat thats why they have to buy it in!

Well actually on principle our family joints are always locally produced and sold by our local friendly butcher who our family have shopped with for the last 40 odd years

Dick_Turpin99

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

In the case of fresh meat it's even more important to get it right. If they order 50 Kg of top quality free range pork at £20 per Kg and it doesn't sell, they have to bin the lot.

the point is though the supermarket purchasers armed with legislation DICTATE strongly what the UK producers must do in order to meet "their standards" and then on the other hand bring in cheap food - they could also buy cheap food here if they wanted it!!! - somewhat hypocritical of them to import, I would say!

While we have hysteria pumped in to us about BSE/Foot & Mouth the Govt purchasing dept. happily import South American beef for the schools and armed forces rather than practising what they preach.....moreover when they harp on about carbon footprint how is it better to bring food half way around the world?

fluffnutter

!!!!!!_Turpin99 wrote: »

While we have hysteria pumped in to us about BSE/Foot & Mouth the Govt purchasing dept. happily import South American beef for the schools and armed forces rather than practising what they preach

Yeah... because it's cheap! And taxes pay for food for schools and Armed Forces. And let's face it, tax payers would soon be moaning if the government was spending loads on 21 day aged Aberdeen Angus beef.