Call for shorter food chains after meat scandal

Fewer businesses should be involved in bringing any one particular food product from the field to supermarket shelves, with more regular inspections to avoid a repeat of the horsemeat scandal, former government adviser Lord Haskins said.
Customers have been turning to organic meatCustomers have been turning to organic meat
Customers have been turning to organic meat

The retired chairman of Yorkshire food manufacturer Northern Foods told a national conference in York to address food integrity that the scale of the horsemeat scandal had taken him by surprise after he had called for greater transparency and more consistent monitoring in the aftermath of the BSE crisis a decade ago.

Christopher Haskins was speaking at a debate to explore how integrity in the food chain could be assured at the Sand Hutton headquarters of Fera, the government-run science base whose personnel have worked alongside the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to test meat samples suspected of horsemeat contamination. Around 100 delegates attended.

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Lord Haskins hailed the variety and quality of food available in British supermarkets as among the best in Europe but he told the Yorkshire Post some supply chains had become too complicated.

“No one anywhere can control a system where you have meat starting in Romania going on to Holland then France before finding its way on to supermarket shelves in Britain. Some of these products were priced so low to the supermarkets that it should have alerted people to something going on here.

“If they can be duped on horsemeat, they can be duped on something else. On the other hand, supermarkets have responded aggressively and have taken steps to address the situation. The key to this is tight control of supply chains.”

He foresees opportunities for supply chains to become more localised, having already seen demand rise for pork he produces on his farm in Driffield.

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“It should an opportunity to British suppliers to do more business. The big retailers are already moving closer to us. They feel more secure when they can go out to see the pigs on the farm but people have short memories and we have to be vigilant that we don’t go back to old practices.”

No meat samples tested from Sainsbury’s supermarkets contained horsemeat but Alec Kyriakides, its head of production quality, safety and supplier performance, said: “I have some sympathy with those who were exposed because fundamentally the processes we [the industry]have are ones built on trust. These people were let down by individuals in the supply chain.

“The longer the supply chain the more opportunities there are to expose yourself to risks but that doesn’t mean long supply chains aren’t safe. It’s about ensuring you put resources appropriate to long supply chains if you take that risk.”

Barry Dodd, chairman of the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership, the hosts of the conference, said 50,000 jobs are dependent on food manufacturing in Yorkshire.

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Rob Edwards, Fera’s chief scientist, said the agency had tested 500 meat samples and 1,200 tests had taken place to check for traces of bute, the veterinary drug. Lindsay Harris, of Defra’s food policy unit said less than one per cent of meat tested in the UK had tested positive for horsemeat to date.