Is the EU agriculture directorate proposing compulsory “place of farming” labelling for agricultural products? It sounds too good to be true, and it is. All that’s proposed is an indication of EU or non-EU origin. Even that’s almost unanimously opposed by food processors.
Supermarkets are mixing cheaper imported beef with British, says the National Beef Association. Taking advantage of reduced prices for beef from the Republic of Ireland, several retailers are now mixing imported beef with British beef to avoid increasing prices for home-produced beef.
Only Morrisons, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Co-op, Budgens sell 100% British. Tesco’s sales of British beef have dropped from 98% to 90% since 2007, while just 60% of ASDA’s beef is British. Anyone wishing to buy British beef should certainly avoid Netto, which imports all its beef. Despite these varied sourcing policies, surprising results emerge from price comparisons.
Clarissa Dickson Wright rifles through some food packaging and discusses the problem of vague and misleading labelling with Tory spokesmen. All part of the Tories new Honest Food campaign: meat labelled ‘British’ should be born and bred in Britain
The Conservative Party launches a campaign for honest food, demanding that food labelled “British” should be born and bred in Britain. It’s hard to argue with but sadly often not the case in Britain today.
Faced with a jar of chutney or jam, labelled rustically but professionally with the name of the farm shop on whose shelves it sits, one might fondly imagine that it was prepared in the farmhouse kitchen with the best farm and garden produce. The chutney would have made good use of the surplus courgettes, green [...]
Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s revealing and disturbing Our Daily Bread goes behind the scenes of food industry, revealing the story of food from hatchery to abattoir
The welfare of chickens has received long overdue attention this year. Most prominent has been Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Chicken Out! campaign, which may not have succeeded in changing Tesco’s welfare policy (for now) but has evidently shifted some demand from conventional to the higher welfare Freedom Food, free range and organic chicken. Rising demand, rising prices [...]
Update – Our Daily Bread is now available on DVD in the UK Our Daily Bread is a film about the modern food industry that’s been described as “The 2001: A Space Odyssey of modern food production”, despite its direct depiction of the truth behind the food we eat. Shot without any commentary, director Nikolaus [...]
Amazon.com has today announced a new venture: AmazonFresh will be delivering fresh (and frozen and “shelf-stable”) foods, ordered online, to households in Seattle. The foods available will include “highest-quality fresh fruits and vegetables” and a “leading assortment of natural, organic, and specialty brands”. Some of the produce is described as “farm-fresh” but there’s no further [...]
Check prices now Check today’s price of milk in Tesco / Asda / Sainsburys / Waitrose – Ocado with mySupermarket.co.uk The Rising Price of Milk Two weeks ago, Tesco was widely praised in the media for announcing two initiatives: To increase the price UK dairy farmers receive for milk, while not raising the price of [...]
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