The NFU have today criticised leading UK supermarket Tesco for stocking 8% less British beef that 12 months ago in a rather damning article in The Guardian (see here).
With the now growing public desire for British made and British grown this seems to be a peculiar and non-nonsensical move by Tesco. Especially following peoples general miss-trust of foreign meat in the wake of the horse-meat controversy, in which this supermarket was central. So while Morrisons is a “shining example of commitment to British-produced food” Tesco are still failing to catch the buy-British bug.
Tesco state that all its beef was sourced in either the UK or Ireland and and so by implication it would suggest that they are now sourcing more beef from Ireland. Interestingly they also state that UK consumers do not differentiate between food from the UK and the food from Ireland. I am not sure how I feel about that personally nor am I particular sure that it is true. So, we thought that this questions was worth a quick poll:
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I have noticed for sometime that Tesco does not support British industry eg Baked beans,lorries,toothpaste!!
That’s a very sweeping statement, it implies the customers either don’t have the intelegence to understand, or are just apathetic. We buy local meat from our local butcher who can tell you exactly where it came from, the farm not just the country!
As Ireland is not part of the UK and, therefore, a foreign country, it is not patriotic to buy products from there and think we are still buying British. Scotland, Wales, & Northern Ireland yes; Ireland, no.
Minor point, but Northern Ireland doesn’t count as ‘Britain’, although it is part of the UK. Additionally, does the Irish beef come exclusively from the R.O Ireland, or could some of it be sourced from Northern Ireland and is simply packaged as Irish beef? Just a thought!
That is indeed a good technical point. If beef is labelled as Irish it will be the republic of. Tesco state in their advertising that “100% of our beef comes from UK and Irish farms”