Has the chevalburger incident changed your mind about food or shops you buy it in ?

blackandwhitebunny

Several years ago there was a much less public issue when they found that chicken breasts processed in the Netherlands contained pig and beef proteins. These had also originated in fillers which were added to chicken when using a process called tumbling to increase the amount of water that could be absorbed by them. Part of the problem was that lots of these had been sold to restaurants and takeaways which had large numbers of hindu and muslim customers for whom consumption of these is very serious. (Joanna Blythman talks about this in one of her books) There could be a similar issue here.
I personally only buy organic sausages and burgers and don't buy any other processed meat products so it probably won't affect me.
I only go to tesco's for the odd laundry or cleaning product when I have vouchers, I don't buy wine, fruit, veggies or meat from them because of the way they treat suppliers.
And finally... The reason why shops can produce three and four bird roasts cheaply now is that they use protein 'glue' very similar to these fillers to stick the different bits together.

Juzza12

Didn't know that Tesco Finest burgers were taken off shelves, thought it was cheap ones.

Were the Finest ones fresh or frozen?

gailey_2

tesco were frozen I think.

not sure they tested fresh yet.

feel rather crap now as had aldi 4bird roast for xmas.

as for chicken or even pork steak you tend to loom at them as natural form not messed with dont realise what they injected with or how much is water.

most people wouldent class chicken, pork chop or fillet as procesed food but it clearly is.

Heres my regular butcher

http://www.bristolmeatmachine.co.uk/ but he doesnt do organic/free range so changing as akthough as trust them they lovley they buy from meat trader at london market.

2013 been real eye opener and going to mean big changes with how we shop.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

since this happening we have had more inquires about our pork from people who walk near our pig paddock, so they see the animals being reared, processed at a local-ish family run abotoir..

so it looks as though this has brought people to their senses regarding cheap meat/products

blackandwhitebunny

gailey wrote: »

as for chicken or even pork steak you tend to loom at them as natural form not messed with dont realise what they injected with or how much is water.

most people wouldent class chicken, pork chop or fillet as procesed food but it clearly is.

Gailey, the chicken breasts I was talking about were large boxes of catering quality supplied to wholesalers and then to food outlets. You'd be okay of you buy them from one of the supermarkets and check that they don't have added water in the ingredients and they are British as we don't yet use these methods.
Interestingly they first started to investigate them as they were listed as containing 25% water and were found to have a lot more.

Edwardia

Well if even 5 people in hundred actually changed how they shopped that would mean a 5% increase in sales for non-supermarket retailers, producers and farmers which would be good news in the recession.

Someone else asked where do I find a farm shop so if you're looking to buy local try these to find places:

www.bigbarn.co.uk
www.gourmetbritain.com
www.soilassociation.org/visitanorganicfarm

there are also delivery services

www.abelandcole.co.uk
www.riverford.co.uk
www.farmaround.co.uk
www.manicorganic.co.uk Lancashire
www.foodaridirect.co.uk
www.farmison.com
www.hillsandparkes.com
www.soilandseed.co.uk London only delivered by Tesco !
www.ocado.com does own brand organic veg/fruit and veg boxes 20% off atm plus organic food from Duchy Originals. Laverstoke Park Farm, Daylesford Organics, The Black Farmer etc
www.onlywithtilia.com London only

www.allensofmayfair.co.uk London shop and mail order
www.laverstokepark.co.uk farm shop Hampshire, shop in Richmond, mail order, available Abel & Cole, Ocado
www.donaldrussell.com butchers to HM The Queen lots of people on MSE use mail order
www.clarebarry.co.uk another one mentioned for mail order by MSErs
www.musks.com Newmarket and mail order sausages
www.britishsausages.co.uk The Great British Sausage Co events. Luton airport and mail order
www.daylesfordorganic.com farm shop Gloucestershire, online shop (not meat), shops London and via Ocado (includes chicken).

Lynsey

If people boycotted say Tesco (and others) altogether until they got their act together it may clean things up.
People power has it's place and sadly not used enough here!!
Not suitable for everyone sadly, but hitting their profits seems the only way to hurt them!!

Power to the people. lol

Lynsey

geri1965_2

I would love to be able to eat organic meat straight from the farm, and boycott Tesco, but a) I can't afford it and b) not having a car and Tesco being the closest supermarket to me means I am stuck with them (not that any of the other supermarkets are much better).

Edwardia

geri1965 we don't have a car as we live 5 mins walk from the station and OH commutes. We live in a smallish town (50,000) with one (non-organic) butcher and with ASDA, Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsbury's (2) and Tesco supermarkets plus deliveries from Waitrose in another town.

It's quite difficult to find organic meat here, I won't buy Tesco's as it's tough, our branches of ASDA and Morrisons and Lidl don't do it, we don't have a Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury's doesn't do much.

So I started doing shopping by Ocado and Abel & Cole and if Riverford delivered here I would use them too.

If you're looking specifically for meat, then besides deliveries from companies like Abel & Cole and Riverford, there are companies that will send local or organic meat, poultry and game to you by courier.

Eversfield Organic gives free delivery if you have a monthly meat box. Graig Farm Organics gives a discount on first orders and if you start ordering veg boxes from Abel & Cole you get a free cook book and your 4th veg box free. Ocado also gives a discount on first orders and both Ocado and Abel & Cole do recommend a friend offers. Lots of MSErs like Donald Russell and they do first order discounts and a recommend a friend thing.

So there are options if like me, you live in a town and offers available. Many towns have farmers markets too which we don't have here

Edwardia

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Processing/ABP-shutters-Silvercrest-site-involved-in-horse-meat-scandal

Article about the horsemeat scandal from foodproductiondaily.com and the interesting thing is that the website announces that these two labs can test for species DNA which means this could have been going on for years and there was no test capable of detecting the horsemeat.