Tracing the problems faced by British rare breed producers
What’s the real issue behind the Horsemeat scandal?
The ‘Horsemeat Scandal’ revealed a fundamental breakdown in the meat supply chain and a complete disconnection between us, the public, and the food that we eat.
100% traceability is a crucial requirement for protecting our edible biodiversity, an issue particularly relevant to the sheep and cattle industries. Traditional rare breed producers up and down the country are fighting an uphill battle to keep these products on our plates. With the current system favouring larger, fast maturing, commercial breeds, it is up to us to offer the much needed support to these farmers.
The ‘Horsemeat Scandal’ showed the scale of the task many of our rare breed producers are facing. However the sensational stories which shocked the nation largely excluded the plight of the small scale producer.
It is easy to get hung up about the labelling of horse meat as beef but isn’t it equally scandalous that wonderful British breeds - such as Blue Grey cattle, Old Gloucester cattle and Herdwick Sheep, with all their unique qualities - are being lost in a mountain of nameless meat!
At a time when meat consumption is at its highest ever levels, we have a responsibility to be responsible consumers. There has to be a very real and drastic change in the way we think about and buy meat.
What can you as the consumer do?
At a very basic level, we need to show that there is a demand to know what we’re eating.
While there are wider issues and arguments surrounding the regulations imposed on farmers and abattoirs, we at Slow Food UK believe that informed consumer decisions can drive change from within the food system, and raise awareness about the wider traceability issues faced by rare breed farmers in Britain.
By asking simple questions – What is the breed? Who is the producer? Where is it from? - we are forcing our supermarkets, and our butchers to stop selling non-descript packages of meat. We are forcing abattoirs to put the appropriate practises in place to ensure 100% traceability. We are pressing the government to put the appropriate legislation in place to support rather than hinder our rare breed producers.
We challenge you to ask the questions, until we start getting clearer, better answers!
At Slow Food UK we promote eating less but better quality meat. For more information on this have a look at our meat guide. To find out more about Forgotten Foods breeds visit our products page.