Friday 5 August 2011

Buying British - Catering Companies Letting the Side Down Badly

Unlike supermarkets, catering companies are not obliged to tell the public where the food they sell every year actually comes from. So you and your family could be eating anything from anywhere, and produced to heaven knows what standards.

Quite apart from the standards question, it is depressing to see that so many catering companies, even the big ones, do not wholeheartedly support British farmers and growers.
Trawling through profiles of some of the larger businesses we find that:

Compass Group, the biggest catering suppliers in the world, use 100% British for their fresh beef, milk, and eggs. All their root veg comes from Britain “where seasonality and quality allow”. They do not claim that their chicken is British, but use the words “British Farm Assured”, which may mean it is produced in Britain. We do not know where they get their pork, bacon and ham from, or their dairy products apart from milk, or their lamb.
McDonalds’ goes for dual sourcing, buying milk (all organic), eggs, (all free range), beef, pork and oats from both Ireland and Britain, probably to benefit from the effects of currency exchange.  100 tonnes of the 440 tonnes of apples they use in their fruit bags are British. We do not know where their chicken comes from.

Wetherspoons the pub chain have 100% British beef in their burgers. All the pork in their sausages is British, as are their potatoes. Their eggs (all free range) “carry the British Lion quality mark”. Again, it is not clear whether the eggs are produced in Britain.

 About 40% of KFC’s chicken is imported, with the rest coming from Britain. They have just put the Red Tractor logo on their on the bone chicken.
Gregg’s, noted for their pies and sausage rolls, provide no details of where their food is produced but have committed to issuing an ethical sourcing policy this year.

Subway, now said to be the biggest fast food chain in the world, also has nothing about sourcing in its literature, but is reported to get their turkey from Brazil, and their chicken from 5 different countries – Thailand, plus 4 in South America.
The most transparent company found is Pret a Manger, the £350million turnover purveyor of extremely high class sandwiches. On their website you can find details of where every ingredient they source comes from.

Their chicken is UK sourced, to higher welfare standards, as is their ham, bacon, organic milk, and free range eggs “if we can get them”. Their beef though comes from southern Ireland, as does their cheddar, and their butter from France!! But though it is possible to cavil at a company which for some reason won’t buy British beef, cheese or butter, at least we know a fair bit about what we are eating.
So some caterers make more of an effort than others, but clearly there is a lack of commitment by catering companies to buy British, and it is disappointing. The market for food and soft drinks eaten out is worth £43 billion. Supply to catering companies would be a welcome boost to demand at a time when consumers are cutting back on the amount of food they buy from the shops.










1 comment:

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