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.

I buy high welfare (organic or at least free range) poultry and pork, the best milk and butter I can, preferably Yeo or Calon Wen and British beef and lamb. It's a free for all with cheese and when I buy ready meals eg pies and curries. I wish the latter was higher welfare but I am time poor, would afford better if it was convenient.

I buy British meat. Standards are good. I try and avoid convince food as I know the chicken etc is likely to come from somewhere that sees animals as a mass produced commodity,

For anyone who is interested Aldi's pork sausages, the extra special ones in the black packet are from british outdoor bred pigs. I assume that means the sows breed outside then when the piglets weaned they are taken inside to be fattened up?

It's not perfect, but British is better than Danish I think when it comes to welfare standards in pork production. And my farner friend tells me Aldi and Morrisons have high welfare standards and still manage to give a fair deal to British farmers.

Sorry forgot. I do buy the cheaper cuts of meat but goas high welfare as possible given where I am shopping. A few times a year I when I need a big joint I will buy online and get a big delivery from an organic farm type set up.

Waitrose I have found is the best for having integrity in it's food chain. It's rarely dragged into food scandals.

But even then it's not 10o per cent.

The point I was making scary is that I have little faith in EU food standard.

It wasn't a UK food factory illegally pumping horse meat into cheap pies sold to Albania.

Generally I feel UK farming and food standard are higher than EU. EU food inspectors have no teeth so useless too have standard when not endorsed... IE US chicken doesn't bother me at all.

I'll stick to British .

Having said that I'm largely priced out of the meat market now
I get mince when on offer from Waitrose, same with pork , can't afford lamb, steaks...

I'd rather go back to day's of eating cheaper veg and grains and buying organic chicken as once month special treat

Very quick Google on EU pig farming brings up....

EU pig farming out of control, constantly flouting the law, acting above the law...

For me it's welfare, and we are lucky enough to be able to afford mostly organic Riverford meat.

We will go vegetarian when out and about if we do a trade deal with the US and adopt American food safety standards rather than EU standards. Incidence of food poisoning in America is 10 times what it is here. Jay Rayner was discussing this the other day and said that 380 people die each year in the US; the UK didn't record one death between 2005 and 2015.

Growth hormones would be a no from me.

Generally I try to find a balance between price and higher welfare.

Quality is more important to me than objected chicken breasts full of water (so avoid Tesco)

The UK isn't perfect in welfare standards but a damn sight better than USA so I would not be happy with that just to save a little bit

To add to my post - this already means I don't buy expensive meats so we don't eat lamb and tend to not buy beef unless minced or cheaper cuts for slow cooking.

In the same way that I don't buy as much fish anymore as I can't afford the price of line caught tuna.

Animal welfare all the way for me. I would happily pay treble what we pay for milk