With the news being dominated by the spectre of Chlorinated Chickens post Brexit - which even Mr. Gove says he is against - just how much do we really know about our current supply chain?
Whilst those bleached chickens, and hormone packed beef is off the menu thanks to EU law, there is an astonishing amount of meat that comes from countries that we wouldn’t perhaps expect: 29,000 tonnes of Beef from Brazil, 4,000 tonnes from Botswana; or how about 11,000 tonnes of chicken from Chile, 16,000 tonnes from Thailand and 7,000 tonnes from China*?
Now these animals are of course safe to eat, but have they been reared to welfare standards customers expect? Equally what have they been fed on – in the case of Brazilian Beef almost certainly on soya grown on cleared rainforest. Is that what our customers here in the UK expect?
Because almost all of this meat ends up on the hospitality and processed sector – it’s a hard sell to sell this meat as cuts direct to the consumer. It also acts to undercut our UK farmers, which in turn leads to a loss of countryside here, and drives loss of habitat overseas.
That’s before we look at shellfish, where the vast majority of prawns from South East Asia are now grown on land flooded with seawater, which then renders it infertile from the Salt; where mangroves used to be are large dead zones.
The answer is as always know your supplier, and buy British (or in the case of Prawns, North Atlantic), and also to be aware of where these often-lower welfare products can slip in: children’s menu items (where we may not cook them from scratch) and prepared fillings, pies and other savouries.
Now, who knew so much meat was imported from overseas?
* 2015. Most recent figures available.
