Farmers Choice Free Range Ltd

The Great British Beef Week organised by ‘Ladies in Beef’ founders Minette Batters and Jilly Greed, is a key event for promoting the quality and versatility of British beef to consumers across the British Isles. Coinciding with St George’s Day (23rd April) each year, the event is celebrated across the UK and is supported nationally by some of the region’s biggest supermarket retailers.

Established in the year 2011, Ladies in Beef is an organisation of female beef farmers that seeks to promote and raise awareness about British beef through special events and a country-wide network of dynamic spokeswomen. The group was launched in London in March 2011. Since then, the organisation has been working to increase consumer support of the British beef industry through various ways and also champion the supply beef to all suppliers.

The celebration of the Great British Beef Week is a great way to support British beef farmers across the country. The main focus of the event is not only to promote the production of delicious beef products but also to ensure the welfare of the animals and protection of the environment. By buying from British farmers, you can also support local businesses and thereby help in the growth process of the nation’s economy. As well as this, you also know where your meat is coming from and that your purchased beef products are fresh, free-range and British. This is particularly important in the wake of the recent horsemeat scandal, due to which customers are seeking more information regarding the traceability of various meat products. This discovery of horsemeat in beef products has completely shaken customer’s confidence in processed meat products from foreign factories, therefore creating tremendous opportunities in the British beef industry.

The 2013 Great British Beef Week, celebrated from 21^st – 27^th April, is therefore a fitting time to promote British beef among consumers and speak up about the various nutritional benefits of a truly traceable product. This year, the Ladies in Beef group has joined forces with the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI), a charity group which supports farming families in financial difficulty through public donations and fundraising events. You can also support the cause and raise funds for RABI by ‘hosting a roast’ for friends and family and asking people to make a donation to help the agricultural charity’s work with farming families in financial difficulty.

Alternately, you can support the Great British Beef Week and British Beef farmers by buying tender British beef from Farmer’s Choice Meat Butchers. Our Scottish Beef cattle are reared in complete free range conditions and are matured to the bone to ensure a great taste. In addition to beef, you can also order other meat products online: fish, poultry, vegetables and more, and make use of our home delivery services. So buy British with beef from Farmer’s Choice today and you’ll be helping famers, the beef industry and our own economy!

Just when you think we’re moving on from all the horsemeat stories and the scandal of the terrible supply chain cover-ups, along comes another story to disappoint us.

This time fish is the victim. A large amount of fish has been found to be mislabelled, with cheaper fish being sold as much more expensive varieties. Some traces tested have actually been found to be completely new varieties of fish not previously consumed. Apparently, around 7% of cod and haddock sold in Britain is not actually cod or haddock, but cheaper fish that is used to save restaurants, suppliers and retailers money. And similar results have been found around the world.

Much like the horsemeat news scandal, this fish cover up not only angers consumers because they may have eaten cheap or poor quality fish, but more frustratingly, because they have been mis-sold a product. How can you trust what you buy from a restaurant or shop if it may not be what it is labelled? With fish and seafood this can also be particularly troublesome as many people have dietary requirements or try to buy fish that complies with conservation regulations.

As Kimberly Warner, a scientist with Oceana lobbying group and quoted in the BBC article, says: “If you are going to pay for a wild seafood product, and you want to choose that seafood carefully for your health or for conservation concerns, you will not have that opportunity if you are just being served anything which the industry wants to serve up to you.”

This problem has its roots in the supply chain again. With long, untraceable and opaque supply chains, customers are never going to be 100% sure they know what they are buying. If fish are caught, frozen and labelled straight away by the fishermen and then are sent straight out to distributors who tell their customers exactly where their fish is from – the fishermen, boats and all, then this deception would never happen.

Luckily, Farmer’s Choice are proud to say that this is the process with all of our fish and seafood. We source our products from responsible fishing schemes and actually know the fishermen who supply it to us personally. We source our fish and seafood from British waters where possible, and as our main partner fishermen is based up in the Orkney Islands, and the fish is frozen straight away to seal in the freshness before being sent out to our customers. This traceable, short and transparent supply chain means fish you order from Farmer’s Choice should never be mislabelled and you will get the delicious, responsibly sourced fish you asked for. So we hope this fish scandal news piece won’t put you off buying fish from Farmer’s Choice – we make sure it’s clear there’s no fishy business going on with our supply chain!

Competition: Win an Easter Meat Pack or a Spring Hamper full of delicious free range and UK-sourced meat from Farmer’s Choice.