What is more important to you - cheap food or high welfare standards?

[Scrowy]

There has been news coverage today that the US has said that to enable trade relations the UK may have to consider lowering some food standards (chlorinated chicken, growth hormones etc).

As a beef and sheep farmer I'm genuinely interested to know if the British public really cares about animal welfare standards or if the reality is that money is tight and as long as it's meat people aren't actually too choosy about it's origins if the price is right?

Please don't pander to me, please be honest. If the truth is that you would like to think you would choose high welfare but when it comes down to it at the supermarket shelf you choose the cheaper option... just say.

Welfare standards - which is why I don’t eat meat. Nothing in the meat trade is for the welfare of the animal. One day everyone will wake up to the pain and suffering - which is completely unnecessary for a balanced diet.

I am vegan but cook meat. I only buy ethically reared meat. I don’t like buying and cooking it, but my dietary choices are not my family’s choices. I am fortunately able to afford organic food. I don’t know how anyone would want to eat AB/hormone/chlorinated meat though.

I think this thread serves to demonstrate that the MN 'audience' is not representative of the general population.
My work involves understanding shopper behaviour, and whilst a lot of people say welfare is important, the reality is that price is the real driver and the majority don't look beyond that. It always amazes me the number of people why buy a lot of chicken 'because it's cheap', but it's only cheap because of the way it's farmed. Free range chicken is definitely not cheap (how Aldi manage to sell fr chickens at the price they do is something I haven't fathomed out yet...)

We do at least have the red tractor to give some standardisation to welfare, but I'm not sure how high their standards are. I guess you know though OP? The thought of lowering to American standards really worries me, but I think whilst lots of people will say they wouldn't buy it, the reality is that most won't think twice when they're at the point of purchase.

Even when really poor only bought British meat which does have a higher standard of welfare than EU. Now grow and eat own chickens and buy local red meat. I also offset price by eating veggie. I will not buy US imports.

Welfare every time but I appreciate that I have the luxury of a big food budget. I also think part of the problem is that people are still so unaware of supermarket marketing tactics around meat, my DP is a prime example of this. Recently in Tesco he picked up some chicken from their ‘farms’ range which is their budget meat range (other than value) and when I pointed out this out he said but it has farm in the name so it must be free range 🙄

I can honestly say I’ve never looked at the country of origin on a packet of meat.

These days we're financially comfortable, so I only eat meat that I know has been well treated. But I'll admit when we were skint I went for cheaper stuff mostly.

Welfare. Just thinking of what is fed to the animals and the hormones and stuff injected into chicken (brine) to make it look plumper is not healthy either.

I try and buy meat locally from the butcher. I look for welfare standard stickers on meat I buy elsewhere. I am genuinely angry about the suggestions that we should lower food standards to meet US demands when the US diet is recognized as damaging and causing their population to be unhealthy.

Welfare.
We can afford it, but even years ago when I was properly skint I wouldn’t buy cheap cruel crap meat. I just made meat a monthly treat and was essentially vegetarian. I do think that you’re getting very skewed answers here though. I only know one other household that’s a free range only meat one and I know lots of households that could afford it.

I buy 90% of the meat we eat in a butchers where the farm and origin of the meat is explained. It tastes much better and eases my conscience around mass production and cruelty to animals. As I've got older, have a greater income and a family, this has become more feasible and I feel more strongly about it. I apply the same approach to eggs, milk etc. But it's a balance as if you eat out you know organic produce isn't always available and sometimes the most ethical products simply aren't feasible on your budget.

I don’t cook much from fresh (more processed) so my meat is I’m sure lower welfare. I try to buy the British ones. If I do start from fresh I try to buy British but I only have access to a supermarket, rather than a proper butcher.

Tbh these answers don’t reflect my daily experience. I do not see loads of family butchers and the organic sections in the big supermarket are small, though the British label is prominent.

Can I ask farmers what to look for when buying “British” meat. I know years ago the animal could be bred abroad and killed in the uk and be marked British - is that all sorted now?

Just to add I’m horrified that the govmt is looking to lower standards. British meat has some of the highest welfare standards in the world. We should be championing that and not racing to the bottom.

Op I’ve only read your posts.

Welfare standards are definitely a consideration for me. Our budget is tight (2 kids, 1 & 3 so we’re at the me working PT/still covering some childcare costs stage) but I really, really try to consider welfare as much as I can. Typically I’ll buy meat in the reduced section, so I try to buy with a higher welfare standard but what we can afford - then I cook like buggery to make sure I can make and freeze meals. If that means portioning up at 2am so be it.

I’m so sorry, if I could afford to buy at full price, I would.

That being said, it would be a cold day in hell before I bought American. The welfare standards are not sufficient, and I think the idea of chlorinated chicken is vile.

Op, please can I ask you a question? I will only buy cravendale milk because I’ve heard that Arla offers farmers a fairer price for milk. Am I doing the right thing, or is there another brand I should buy, or another way of purchasing milk?

Hi OP, Yes, Mumsnet is skewed towards those on a middle-high income so yes, you’ll see more people on here who are concerned about food provenance and welfare which is why I suggested you go over to Netmums (before you said you’d been banned).

I do think people want to be seen as ‘right on’ and concerned with animal welfare but for most, it’s all about what’s cheapest (hence the rise of Primark as another poster pointed out).

I dont know if people will want cheaper cuts of meat or not, Im not your target market by the sound of things. I suspect not. They want a cheap steak. Nobody wants to serve their family pigs cheeks or trotters. It just doesnt have the same ring to it and most wouldnt kniw how to cook them.

At the end of the day, I think people turn a blind eye to anomal welfare if it means they can have cheap steak.

Welfare and local where possible. We eat a good variety of meat, chicken, fish, shellfish and vegetarian meals as it is. If meat got very expensive, rather than buy chlorinated and drugged meat imported from the US, we eat more fish, shellfish and vegetarian meals.

We are 'farm assured' (Red Tractor) but it doesn't change the way we farm at all, it's basically just extra paperwork.

that extra paperwork and paying our annual sub means we can sell to the supermarket buyers. The supermarkets are the driver for schemes like red tractor because it passes the welfare burden back to the producers rather than the supermarkets making their own checks or imposing their own standards.

Nearly all my meat comes from a local fuel station which stocks locally produced and slaughtered beef, lamb and pork alongside its normal fuel station fridge fare. No idea if it's red tractor or not but I know it's local, hasn't travelled hundreds of miles before slaughter and had a good life in open countryside until it was time to become food.

I suspect awful lot if cheap food comes from the EU currently (especially things like ham/ bacon/ cheap chicken) and I wonder what's goong to happen next.

We eat mostly vegetarian as it works out easier and cheaper for us, we also batch cook a lot so everything we do make goes further, but when we do eat meat we get it from a butcher rather than the supermarket. We aren't on a particularly tight budget I dont think, £50 per week for 2 adults and 1 child (and 3 cats!!). I don't buy any branded staples e.g. pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes and veg to make up for that our meat costs a bit more. From the butchers I know it is local and I'd like to hope that means higher welfare but I honestly have to say, I don't know. I do plan what I'm going to make through the week and exactly what I need to buy to save money.

I'd much rather pay more for higher welfare and eat less meat but think I'm in the minority.

Welfare should come first and it should be done through regulations not personal choice precisely because we all would like a good standard of welfare but when it comes down to it many if us will choose the cheaper option.

We should eat less meat but pay more for it.

Welfare and production standards. It's more expensive, so we don't eat as much as we could if I bought cheaper. If those standards get undermined we would go veggie.

I buy meat I can afford so usually low budget or what's on offer. I genuinely think nothing about the welfare of the animal when I buy meat. Of course I don't want animals to be tortured but meat is, in my opinion, food and I lose no sleep over it. Not trying to be goady just being honest.

1000% welfare. I just won’t eat meat if it’s shit.

Ohfourfoxsake I'm a bit removed from modern dairy farming (last time I milked a cow I was 9) but my understanding is that the likes of Arla or the individual supermarkets have contracts with particular farmers to be the 'face' of that supermarket / brand of milk and they get paid more per litre of milk than other dairy farmers but the reality is that all the milk from all the farms just goes into one big tank and then just gets bottled out into different brands.

But the milk you drink is no better/worse for it. You just pay a premium to make sure that a particular farmer gets paid a fair amount. Given most supermarkets use milk as a loss leader you aren't paying over the odds, just somewhere nearer cost price. It's a shame cost price is bing allowed to be peddled as a premium product though.

I agree with what you said at 22:33 OP.

There is no way this thread reflects society.
It is difficult to come on to a thread, 4 pages in, where everyone (no doubt most of them absolutely genuinely) are claiming the moral high ground, to then say "Actually, it is the cost that is most important to me", as we all know that isn't "the correct" answer.
For the overwhelming majority of society though, that is what has to happen in their daily lives, or weekly budgets if you like. Most people aren't going to do too much research into how the meat has been 'reared'. They are going to assume, because we live in UK, and have things like foods standard agency, and various laws around safety and hygiene, that if the food is on the supermarket shelf, it is 'good enough' and that no chicken (to use example upthread) costing £15 is going to be 3 times tastier than one costing £5.