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thomas davison

The real horsemeat scandal is that our greedy, ruthless supermarkets have got off scot-free

By Alex Renton

PUBLISHED: 22:50, 2 September 2013 | UPDATED: 22:50, 2 September 2013

In February, David Cameron told the Commons that the horsemeat scandal was 'appalling' and 'completely unacceptable' and promised 'the full intervention of the law'

In February, David Cameron told the Commons that the horsemeat scandal was 'appalling' and 'completely unacceptable' and promised 'the full intervention of the law'

Soon after the horsemeat scandal, the internet was awash with jokes about �Shergar-burgers� and an �unbridled PR disaster�. One wag came up with the line: �My daughter has always wanted a pony, so I�m buying her a Tesco quarter-pounder for her birthday.�

Now, six months after the worst scandal in the history of our supermarkets, the biggest joke of all has emerged. And it is the shops and food manufacturers that are having the last laugh.

The big stores and food suppliers that, for years, have let horse, donkey, pork and who-knows-what other foreign substances into cheap burgers and ready meals have been told what penalty they will face. The answer is precisely none. No prosecution, no fines, not even any new regulation to prevent them pulling the same revolting stunt again.

In February, when David Cameron told the Commons that the horsemeat scandal was �appalling� and �completely unacceptable� and promised �the full intervention of the law�, some of us dared hope that the supermarkets would face penalties for their part in the proceedings.

Six months on and the result of that prime ministerial pledge is that one small meat producer based near Aberystwyth, who appears never to have missold horsemeat, has been unjustly driven out of business. He is now suing the police.

The supermarkets, meanwhile, have got off scot-free.

At the height of the crisis, Tesco � Britain�s biggest food retailer � was found to be selling value beefburgers that contained an alarming 29 per cent horsemeat when subjected to DNA tests.

After a minor wobble, when it briefly lost market share to Sainsbury�s, it is back on track. Its share price has returned to what it was before anyone heard about the bizarre final resting place of those sad East European nags.

If ever there was evidence of how Big Retail has government in an armlock, this is it. If you or I sold a car or a pot of jam and misled the buyer about the miles on the clock or the fruit content, we would have trading standards officers descending on us before we could blink.

Yet supermarkets such as Tesco and big food businesses such as Findus, whose beef lasagne was found to contain up to 100 per cent horsemeat, have been let off on the grounds that they could not have known what was going on.

So that�s one lesson learnt: a food retailer � if big enough � will not be held responsible for the ingredients in its products.
At the height of the crisis, Tesco - Britain's biggest food retailer - was found to be selling value beefburgers that contained an alarming 29 per cent horsemeat when subjected to DNA tests

At the height of the crisis, Tesco - Britain's biggest food retailer - was found to be selling value beefburgers that contained an alarming 29 per cent horsemeat when subjected to DNA tests

The truth is that trading standards bodies and the Government�s feeble Food Standards Agency are terrified of the legal muscle of the supermarket giants, and the expensive legal battle that any prosecution would bring about.

Government, meanwhile, has been put in the choke-hold the big retailers employ every time there is a threat to their freedom to do business as they wish, even when it risks poisoning the public.
�Regulation will increase prices!� the big shops cry.

At the time of the scandal, Tesco�s chief executive, Philip Clarke, said that the added cost of the DNA testing of meat could drive up prices: �I hope that it doesn�t mean price increases, but I can�t stand here today and tell you that it won�t.�

And nothing scares politicians quite so much as the threat of food price inflation � a guaranteed vote-loser.

But with no penalty � not even a slap on the wrist � you can be certain that dodgy meat will go on turning up in burgers, cheap chicken fed on animal proteins will fill the freezer cabinets and Vietnamese catfish will be passed off as North Atlantic cod.
The trading standards bodies and the Government's feeble Food Standards Agency are terrified of the legal muscle of the supermarket giants, and the expensive legal battle that any prosecution would bring about

The trading standards bodies and the Government's feeble Food Standards Agency are terrified of the legal muscle of the supermarket giants, and the expensive legal battle that any prosecution would bring about

As sure as eggs contain salmonella, these things will go on until someone with more muscle than David Cameron tells the food retail business that enough is enough, and that sanctions will be imposed on any retailer found to be misleading its customers.

The great tragedy of what came to be dubbed �Horsegate� is that we have missed a golden opportunity to clean up food retail.

In the early days of the scandal, it looked as though public outrage might bring about reform of the way supermarkets and big suppliers operate. Britain woke up to the terrible things being done to animals so that supermarkets could provide beefburgers for 12.5p each. We learned of the miserable conditions in which horses on Eastern European farms were kept.

We read of �beef� burgers that contained traces of battery-farmed pigs and of the �pink slime� that, through pressure-cooking pig skeletons in ammonia, provided much of the meat content of cheap sausages and pies.

Supermarket shoppers reacted in horror and ready-meal sales fell by 20 per cent. Local butchers reported queues as people decided to cut out the big-brand names and instead buy real meat from people they could trust.
Big food businesses such as Findus, whose beef lasagne was found to contain up to 100 per cent horsemeat, have been let off on the grounds that they could not have known what was going on

Big food businesses such as Findus, whose beef lasagne was found to contain up to 100 per cent horsemeat, have been let off on the grounds that they could not have known what was going on

British farmers, who for years have watched supermarkets spurn their honest products in favour of the cheapest possible ingredients shipped from abroad, thought they might see a change in their fortunes.

But six months on, very little has changed. When I went into my local Tesco at the weekend, you could still buy a 12.5p beefburger.

The maths behind a burger as cheap as that is revealing. A pack of eight �Tesco everyday value beef burgers� weighs 397g and sells for �1. That�s �2.52 a kilo. But the market retail price of the cheapest beef mince this week is, according to official figures, �5.23 a kilo.

It�s hard to see how the sums add up. How can a farmer possibly make a profit � or even break even � when the supermarkets are selling meat for as little as that? You can imagine how a producer might feel forced to cut a corner or two to make a profit.

Despite the food retailers� promises that they have installed new DNA testing procedures, there is no good reason to believe that the old, bad ways won�t continue.
No action: Even after the horsemeat scandal, Tesco, Asda, Lidl, Waitrose and Sainsbury's continue to make multi-billion-pound profits

No action: Even after the horsemeat scandal, Tesco, Asda, Lidl, Waitrose and Sainsbury's continue to make multi-billion-pound profits

The economics of food supply operate on such tight margins and the competition in food retail is so fierce that the pressure to cut corners is irresistible.

Supermarket squeezing of the supply chain has put a third of British pig farms out of business in the past decade. The supermarkets prefer bacon from Europe, where it is cheaper simply because welfare standards are far lower.

In fact, the supermarkets� endless drive for increased profit margin and cheaper raw materials is behind all the nastiest food scandals that have surfaced in recent years.

In 2003, for example, pig and cow proteins were found in chickens fed on a cheap imported feed.

Then, in 2005, an illegal cancer-causing dye, Sudan 1, turned up in tens of thousands of supermarket ready meals.

In 2008, hundreds of tons of pork from Ireland were found to contain hugely toxic dioxins because of the rubbish � yes, literally � that the pigs had been fed.

In all of these scandals the supermarkets claimed innocence � how were they to know?

And with a barely functioning food safety set-up in this country � remember, it was Ireland�s Food Standards Agency that uncovered the horsemeat scandal, not ours � how are we, the consumer, to know what is really in our ready meal?

The big supermarkets have been happily ripping off Britain for years. Not just with their pseudo-bargains � putting prices up the week before announcing a �generous� discount � but with their pork or horse passed off as beef.

They drain the life out of Britain�s countryside, sucking the money out of the farming system. Farmers get barely half the retail value of a cow or lamb now, as opposed to 70 per cent 25 years ago.

And still Tesco, Asda, Lidl, Waitrose and Sainsbury�s continue to make multi-billion-pound profits.

When they do find themselves mired in scandal, selling us adulterated meat from dubious sources, they receive nothing more than a warning to be more careful next time.

Meanwhile, we consumers, who make their tills ring and keep their share prices high, have little confidence that what we are eating bears any resemblance to the promise made on the lab

WELL IT GOES TO SHOW THAT SLAVES EAT CRAP,