Local butchers importing meat from China

[Glitterybee]

AIBU to be absolutely fuming about this?

I spent a small fortune at a local butchers on Saturday and as I went to open one of the items today (chicken), I noticed it said on the pack ‘origin of meat - China’

That then prompted me to check all the packaging and none of the meat is sourced locally. They were all labelled as coming from either China or Poland.

I live in a very rural area with a huge network of farmers. Why on earth would a local butcher import chicken and red meat from other countries? I think it’s a disgrace.

^ apparently, it is Ukraine which is known as the Bread Basket of Europe and not Poland, apologies all.

Op I find that shocking also, I have wondered how we do know the provenance of meat from local butchers.
At least a supermarket is at risk of being found out.
Surley local butchers can do anything?

I'd be nervous about any eu pork to be honest
A long while ago I was reading about how hard it was to implement food standards across the eu for a number of reasons.
I'm sure I read the UK for instance has some of the highest pork standards in the world.

I can't believe we are importing Chinese chicken..

I think waitrose is the only food producer who doesn't get caught up in the scandals.

I used an award winning butcher and the meat has been superb but I don't feel comfortable because I still don't know where it's from

@TaffetaRustle

I can't believe we are importing Chinese chicken..

Because we can't produce enough in the UK of chicken nor anything else. We're losing farmland to property development, wind and solar farms, the population is increasing. We'd starve if we didn't import anything. We've not been self sufficient in terms of food for a few centuries! Farming more chicken would mean farming less of other crops and animals. Chicken need to be fed, so we'd also have to import more feed to feed them!

There's an excellent podcast by Chris Van Tulleken (of Ultra Processed People fame) on Spotify called 'Fed', all about the chicken industry. How they're farmed, how they're slaughtered, the environmental vs ethical implications of the different ways of rearing them. And also about imports. Anything that comes in from outside the EU would worry me as you wouldn't have the same level of welfare for the birds and there's always concerns about the amount of antibiotics/flavourings/water that are artificially added into the chicken.

I don't eat it anymore but I remember getting a chicken tikka massalla microwave ready meal from Tesco and the chicken in it was RANK. The packet said it was from Thailand. I thought no wonder it's so rubbery and gross, it literally travelled half way across the world to end up on my plate!

I understand why we have to import, although there are arguments against that also but I wouldn't feel too great about eu meat either..

You have to dig a little but the eu isn't one homogeneous mass, there are wildly different standard between the countries and it's hard to implement rules.

My mum reminds us occasionally that when she was young, chicken was a luxury, bought only if the rellies were coming, had to be ordered, long before Supermarkets, when there were three butchers in the town, or at Christmas Dad would buy a capon, does anyone remember those?

Yes, chicken was a special treat meal and much valued. Now for so many it's a thing to have sauce from a jar poured over it if 'I feel like chicken tonight' on a Wednesday.

We do not value our food enough now, it's too easily available and too cheap. I know there are working people going to food banks who will understandably balk at that but compare food waste nowadays to that of 40 or 50 years ago.

I heard not so long ago that capons were castrated without medication cockerels so not very welfare friendly, hence they're not a thing any more, AFAIK.

Look at the list of ingredients on a veggie or vegan ready made hamburger then think about what you would put into one, whether it be plant or meat based, if you made your own.

I sort of assumed she meant the label once it was weighed.

My local butcher wrap your meet in a package and seal it with a sticky label. That label is printed with the detail of the product, ie 1.58kg shoulder mince @ £× /kg. Total price and date.

I hadn't seen those labels include origin, hence assuming differently

Sheep and cattle don't do well on steep mountains and wet valleys. The hardy breeds that exist there just do better than other breeds and crops which are impractical. Sheep and cattle do much better on lowland pasture, but the opportunity cost then becomes greater.

Sorry to talk weather. What we produce and where we produce it has much to do with the fact that the western half of the country sticks out into a vast ocean and the prevailing winds brings wet mild weather, very suited to grass production for grazing, while the east traditionally has been drier so more suited to arable and root crops. This is why traditionally dairy production is heavy further west, with more arable on the eastern side (and pigs which don't do well in wet weather) across Yorkshire, Humber, Lincolnshire and into East Anglia.

I'm veggie so never been in a butchers, but always assumed that the butcher prepared the meat then sold it? Otherwise why not just go to supermarket? Unless they've actually had a whole animal delivered from China! Ugh, I don't know.

I have checked Aldi and Iceland and they have a lot of British meat. I will be checking in future. Thanks OP.

Yuk. Id leave a review online and social media. I bet most would assume it's British. I would assume that tbh. Our local butchers specify the local farms they use. It costs more but I'll eat less of it. Would rather support British farmers not to mention the welfare standard.