don't go giving Lidl ideas!

Quite so.

Plus ...

According to the Q Guild of Butcher on Twitter this morning: "@q_guildbutchers: We have seen a 10% rise in trade and 30% rise in burger sales. Consumers trust the Q Guild, we can guarantee 100% beef".

One of the issues is whether – because as you rightly say, this cannot be good-quality horse meat – is whether any of the veterinary drug phenylbutazone ('bute') has entered the food chain. If an animal has been dosed with that, it's banned from entering the human food chain.

there'll still be a small number on the fiddle, unfortunately it's human nature.

Let's not beat about the bush here, this horsemeat WAS NOT fit for human connsumption for the very simple reason that a person able to sell horsemeat for human consumption would do so, instead of selling it at bargain bucket rates as filler for the cheapest of cheap beef meals.

Aye.

[url=http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/topics/food-safety/horse-meat-findus-lasagne-problem-may-have-gone-on-for-six-months-claims-mp/236398.articleSeems that Findus might have known about a problem for six months[/url.

Exactly.

But surely, a la FSA, they could say they "had no evidence" of any risk to health, on the same basis that they had no evidence of anything bar the fact their products may not be what it said on the horsebox?

My understanding is that the possible issue of risk to health is only really just emerging. What remains, even if there was no risk to health, is the issue of miss-selling etc.

Impossible to know for certain at present, but it looks possible that Findus (and quite possibly other companies being caught up in it) were not overly surprised at the situation/hoped that if nobody said anything it would simply 'go away'.

Quite possibly but, if you take our two local butcher's shops for example, they depend on local trust ... if they betray that, they're bust.

Reading about earlier cases, the culprit was thought to be the "filler" supplier.
But, with the high percentages we are seeing (in the Findus case the meat was 100% horsemeat), this is NOT limited to one rogue supplier of "filler".

I can guarantee there was a risk to health. So could the FSA, if it told the truth. It is being totally disingenuous. It says this:



Then they say:

In other words, "there is no evidence of a risk to public health, but (for just one thing) we have no clue whether the fake meat contains bute, which if it did is absolutely a risk to public health".

I conclude that the ONLY way there was definitively no risk to health is if you assume that all criminals involved in selling tons of fake beef nevertheless chose to conveniently comply with all meat rearing, slaughtering, production, storage and transportation legislation and regulations. Am I the only one who finds that suggestion risible?

Maybe they're criminals with a conscience who love their mums and stuff. Like the Krays, but a bit less murdery.

How long before we are introduced to the benefits of eating [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_GreenSoylent Green?[/url

After all, there's a ripe harvest of LTBs on benefits to draw upon

Their get-out is that they are not saying that there is [uno[/u risk, just that there is "no evidence" of risk.

Personally, I reckon that something introduced illegally into the food chain should be treated as though it is a feckin' big risk.

Time for John Gummer to test one out on his daughter, I reckon.

Have heard a comment from a trade association today that if local "traditional" butchers don't use any of this to their own good then they need their heads examined, its PR Gold for a butcher such as my local one who has always had a chalkboard behind the counter stating where todays dead animals came from, even down to the eggs he sells - the more I think about it, he has a sideline going in biscuits, he can even tell you where they are made

But that is a big fat lie. We know that the fake beef doesn't comply with any of the regulations that are designed to remove risk. That is, therefore, in itself, evidence of risk, and a monumentally sized risk at that.

If they had said "there is no evidence of any harm" then (if that is true) then that would be accurate but would equally be the self-evidently worthless 'assurance' they seem desperate to avoid. It's pure semantics and wordplay, designed to give fake re-assurance. The question for the FSA is simple:

"IS THERE A RISK THAT IF I EAT THE FAKE BEEF IT MAY HARM ME?"

They could not truthfully say "Neigh".

Once again this exposes the supermarkets' claims of offering "choice" to be a fallacy. They will only offer you the choices that they decide will benefit them most.

They have an established history of inviting independent suppliers of speciality meals (by speciality, I mean processed and "ready" meals) to supply and then turning the screw until supply becomes economically unviable. While this is happening, the supermarkets are deconstructing the speciality meal and inviting other suppliers to provide a "similar" product for sale under the supermarket's own label. The replacement product will be specified to a price, as opposed to priced to a specification. This can only lead to a lowering in the quality of the replacement product from that of the original.

It's not just processed foods that have a quality problem. When fish and meat are sold at wholesale markets, they are all graded (usually 1 - 5). Supermarket buyers rarely, if ever, buy grade 1 meat & fish: grade 1 beef will be British and will usually come from a grass-fed herd of known provenance, similarly grade 1 fish & shellfish will have been caught or farmed in a sustainable manner from properly managed fisheries. Grade 1 fish will also be the most recently landed, most supermarkets buyers look to buy grade 3 fish, simply because it's cheaper.

The fish, shellfish, meat and specialities that I sell are all from known sources and to the highest quality and I have little difficulty justifying the price to more knowledgeable buyers. The guy who owns the company spends a great deal of his week visiting suppliers and checking quality of sources. The haddock is North Sea rather than West Coast, the cod is Icelandic, the king scallops are Manx and although dredged, the Isle of Man scallop fishery is strictly managed. Salmon is North Atlantic, wild-caught, tuna is yellowfin, line-caught from the Indian Ocean, king prawns are slow-grown, farmed in Malaysia. All our beef comes from a grass-fed herd in Somerset as is our lamb, the poultry is free-range from Hampshire and the pig is from Wiltshire.

Good food is still available but it does come at a price, thankfully there are still enough people willing to pay the premium for the quality and provenance to make independents viable

One for the earth pig:

Findus lasagne is an anagram of: Fed us slain nag

Meanwhile, as the rest of us ponder the bleedin obvious


Riiight. Because you could have 100% horse in beef lasagne but in a good way. OK.

Thing is did these supermarkets know about this? If not, why not? Most businessmen I know would know whether or not a supplier could sell then the required quality of product for the (presumably very low) price they are being screwed down to? So, as well of the questions asked of suppliers there should also be questions asked at the top of the supply chain - ie of the supermarkets. Who knew what and when? If they did not know, why not? The "culture" set by constant cost pressure being applied to suppliers would surely be expected to lead to unethical practices, just like bank leaders presurising junior staff to sell inappropriate insurance "products" to customers? Are the people at the top of these supermarkets fir and proper persons to run public companies? Do I expect such probing questions? Not really. If there are, do I expect such inviduals to be held to account? Absolutely not.

All the time publicly quoted companies are being continually pressured into making year-on-year increased profits and higher shareholder dividends, then there will always be the temptation to reduce cost by whatever means.

Apple Corp are now in the ridiculous situation where they are being sued by a shareholder for sitting on "too much profit". Presumably this shareholder (there's no mention as to whether it's an individual or institution) doesn't appreciate the amount of $ that R&D can suck up, especially in computing & mobile telephony. Maybe the shareholder would be willing to take the profit and then dip his hand in his pocket at a later date. Somehow I doubt that

The issue with stock markets is a seious one that somehow needs regulating for. Capital markets were and should be about getting resources to growing companies and not about people making money on movements in indeices, taking a quick buck etc.
Maybe shareholdings of any size (in aggregate) should be subject to minimum holding periods - of months or years rather than seconds of selling before acquisition?