Supermarkets Vs Butchers

pelirocco

I buy from my local butcher because of quality anchorage traceability not because of price. I know what breed of animal animal and where it came from. I also know that they send their animals to be slaughtered on a Tuesday because that's the only day they don't do halal method

catwoman73

Deleted_User wrote: »

Local butcher shop here only has 3 star food hygiene rating. Not good enough. Where as the local Morrisons has 5 star.

Large supermarkets are very good at at writing procedures and ticking boxes.

There may be absolutely nothing wrong with the '3 star' butchers, except trivial things like they don't have a record of how often they have checked their fridge temperature, or that their chopping boards are the wrong colour.

A._Badger

catwoman73 wrote: »

Large supermarkets are very good at at writing procedures and ticking boxes.

There may be absolutely nothing wrong with the '3 star' butchers, except trivial things like they don't have a record of how often they have checked their fridge temperature, or that their chopping boards are the wrong colour.

I'm glad you said that (it saved me from saying something similar). When the star rating system was introduced locally there was a fascinating article in our local newspaper (a rare event!) in which local businesses explained why they thought the system was unfair.

It was just as you say - box ticking scores highly and what actual relevance it has to genuine issues of hygiene can be peripheral at best.

stephen77

catwoman73 wrote: »

Large supermarkets are very good at at writing procedures and ticking boxes.

There may be absolutely nothing wrong with the '3 star' butchers, except trivial things like they don't have a record of how often they have checked their fridge temperature, or that their chopping boards are the wrong colour.

What happens when the fridge was not cold enough as no one checked?

Its not that hard to check a fridge and to write down a temp or have different colour chopping boards.

If they are trivial things, get them sorted.
When some one does become ill, you can demonstrate it was not your fault (unless you did break procedure)

pauletruth

yet another odd buy just bought 2 gammon joints from the nasty tesco. £3 odd a kilo they are the real ones with a bone in. so should get 3 to 4 joints out of each. compared to £5 odd for the reformatted stuff. the have whole welsh leg of lamb in at £4 per kilo. would buy some but we are still eating our own lambs from last year.

pauletruth

don't assume its just trivial stuff thats wrong. lacking simple record errors may just be the tip of the iceberg.

geordie_joe

pauletruth wrote: »

don't assume its just trivial stuff thats wrong. lacking simple record errors may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Exactly, if you take the trouble to check a fridge temp then it is not much more effort to tick a box to show you have done it.

If they are not recording that they have done it, they probably are not doing it.

DPJames

And as for the 'you know exactly where the meat comes from' argument, just exactly HOW do you know? Because the man selling you it told you what you want to hear. Yeah right.

You've no idea where stuff comes from unless you've killed it yourself

A._Badger

DPJames wrote: »

And as for the 'you know exactly where the meat comes from' argument, just exactly HOW do you know? Because the man selling you it told you what you want to hear. Yeah right.

You've no idea where stuff comes from unless you've killed it yourself

Do you live in an area without a Trading Standards dept? They are quite rigorous about this sort of thing.

Where I live, the best butchers name the farm and give the address. There is not a snowball in hell's chance that they would be stupid enough to risk their reputations by lying.

They leave that to the people who sell the public horsemeat dressed-up as beef.

geordie_joe

A._Badger wrote: »

Where I live, the best butchers name the farm and give the address. There is not a snowball in hell's chance that they would be stupid enough to risk their reputations by lying.

What do the ones who are not "the best" do?

A._Badger wrote: »

They leave that to the people who sell the public horsemeat dressed-up as beef.

Aldi.