Food Scandals

Over the last few months the news has been full of food, but not in a way that gives anyone much of an appetite...

It began on 14 January 2013 when the Food Safety Authority of Ireland revealed that millions of burgers being sold in UK supermarkets weren’t all that they seemed to be.

Over the following weeks it emerged that some beef products in British shops like meatballs, lasagnes, burgers and minced beef actually contained some horsemeat. In some cases all of the meat in the meal came from horses.

Thousands of tonnes of food were removed from supermarkets shelves. Abattoirs (where animals are slaughtered for food) and food-processing companies have shut down and multiple arrests have been made by police investigating the scandal.

The question is: in a country that produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of beef each year, how have we ended up with a situation where we don’t know where our meals are coming from, or even what animal provided the food on our plates?

This issue of Geography in the News will focus on the food industry in the UK and Europe. In particular we will look at:

1. The recent horsemeat scandal.
2. Where food comes from (and a survey that suggests that many of us don’t know as much as you might think!).
3. Some radical ideas which might change the way our food industry works in the future. 

The Horsemeat Scandal – What, Where and When?

Six months ago most people in Britain would have assumed that the burger or lasagne on their plate contained beef that came as directly as possible from the farm to the shop. After all, in many supermarkets in the UK you can see the butchers preparing the food in the shop.

Unfortunately it turns out that in many cases the story is nowhere near that simple! Several factors have come together to make our food supply chain much more complex than you might think...

Before we look at an example of the type of complex food supply chain that bought horsemeat to British stores, let’s look at how the scandal emerged:

January 2013

• Beefburgers produced by an Irish company, ABP Silvercrest, are found to contain horsemeat.

• The company insists that it had not known that some of the meat came from horses, and blames its suppliers instead.

• Food retailers, including Aldi, Tesco, Lidl, Iceland, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose, remove some of their frozen food products from shelves.

February 2013

• Food from more producers in Ireland, UK and France are found to contain horsemeat.

• Findus beef lasagnes, produced by French company Comigel, are found to contain 100% horsemeat (see interactive map below).

• Meat-traders, abattoirs and meat-factories are raided by the police, included Farmbox Meats Ltd near Aberystwyth.

• The owner of the Welsh company is arrested and the Farmbox Meats plant is closed.

March/April 2013

• Investigations into the horsemeat scandal continue in Ireland, the UK and Europe.

• Horsemeat in Findus lasagnes sold in the UK is traced back to abattoirs in Romania.

• The Romanian company insists that the producer knew that it was buying horsemeat when it placed the order.

The Horsemeat Scandal – Food Supply Chains

So how have we ended up with a system where getting meat from a farm to a shop has become so complicated? Surely it is easiest for supermarkets to buy their food locally?

There are several factors involved:

• Globalisation

• As transport and communication systems have advanced, trade between different countries has increased.

• Because costs like animal feed, workers’ wages and fuel vary from country to country, it is often cheaper for UK companies to source their food products from outside the UK.

• Cost-cutting and budget foods

• Almost all supermarkets sell a range of low-price foods which are popular with customers keen to make their food budget stretch as far as possible.

• To make this possible, food-production companies do not rely on one or two farms or factories. Instead they use a large network of other companies to find them the cheapest meat possible at any particular time.

• Deregulation

• Much of the food industry in the UK used to be careful monitored by the government. In recent years, however, rules have been relaxed in a process called ‘deregulation’.

• The meat industry is now expected to police itself, while the government body in charge, the Foods Standards Agency, has limited powers.

• Although food companies should be able to prove exactly where the meat they sell comes from (traceability), the recent scandal has shown that this is not the case.

All of the above, as well as other factors, have resulted in long, complex food-supply chains that are hard to follow or regulate. The potential for mistakes, as well as deliberate rule-breaking, is huge.

One example we mentioned above was that of Findus frozen lasagnes, sold in UK supermarkets, which were found to contain 100% horsemeat. The interactive map below shows just how complicated the journey from farm to plate has become.