Is all meat from Tesco rubbish?

[ijudge]

Can you buy decent meat from Tesco where the animal has been looked after and treated humanely?

Or is it all rubbish?

Looking to buy better quality meat by eating less of it each week, just wondered if I could get meat from Tesco or would I need to go to the butcher.

We normally buy chicken and mince. Should I be buying organic mince? Is there a difference in the normal mince and their finest mince?

We sell our lambs to Tesco's, you are more than welcome to come and look at how they are looked after and reared.

i buy a whole free-range chicken from tescos, range in price from about a fiver to seven quid depending on size.

also buy 2 packets of organic mince for a fiver

my local butcher also doesn't do free range chickens

I buy my meat now from Costco, no idea where it comes from but it tastes good and seems good quality.

I had an experience where I used stewing steak from Tesco and when I tool my casserole out of the oven I had a huge bowl of gravy with some tiny, shrivelled lumps of meat so it clearly had a huge water content. In all fairness Tesco apologised and refunded on the strength of a phone call but I rushed out and bought meat from the butcher added it to the existing sauce and recooked it with great success so our dinner party was saved.

Predictable response from me, but there's no such thing as humane meat.

We get all our meat from Higher Hacknell Farm

There is no doubt it's more expensive than non-organic meat from Tesco, but you can definitely definitely taste the difference and the stuff they publish about their welfare standards makes me cry

The large meat box lasts our family of four for more than 2 months, although we don't eat meat every day (prob 4 days pw)and I stretch mince by adding lentils etc.

Would sacrifice a lot of things before I'd go back to supermarket meat

I'm veggie, but buy meat for my ds's (one has allergies to eggs, nuts, beans, pulses and the other to dairy and nuts therefore knocking out almost any possibility of feeding them anything veggie). I get all our meat from either Abel and Cole or from our local farm shop.

The meat from Abel and Cole is more expensive, but they do emphasise animal welfare and because they deliver (you don't have to be in when they deliver), it is convenient. The quality is excellent according to dp.

TSC there is a lot more to it than that. The welfare of the lambs while they are being reared by their mothers.

Liver is jummy.
I'm lucky enough to get duck and chicken liver from the people who raise poultry at the Farmers Market.

It's dirt cheap as no one wants it, but I do ask for them to get me some a week in advance.

Duck liver in port with pasta is to die for.

Farmers markets are also good for cheap cuts like skirt and scrag end of lamb, which makes excellent stew.

The meat people at the markets tend to only bring popular stuff like steak and chops, plus of course whole birds,

If you give them warning they will bring the other cuts and they will be both delicious and cheap.

yes missmartha I LOVE farmers markets!!!! my dh used to buy the best meat he has ever tasted from an organic farmer with a gorgeous farm (we visited it).

We shop attesco. Simply because it's cheap and cheerful. We are moving next year so trying to save money for that.

is Sainsbury's meat any better than Tesco's, generally?

Even before I became a foodie and married my farmer, I used to buy meat from the butchers in the indoor market,because there was a difference. That would of been 20 years?

I am very qualified to speak on the subject as being married to a farmer, raised animals, been to markets, ran my own meat business, went on many abbattoir vists, butcher visits and reasd and educated myself.

Firstly meat in supermarkets is bought in graded (ie fatness & conformation) They buy direct from livestock markets/contract with a farm and usually pay low low prices. The set conformation is required to fit the plastic wrappers acurately hence the packaging is set size which sits on the shelf say 8 across. There is no room for deveation on this so animals that are amazing but slightly over fat or bigger conformation wont get the price. Sad farmer - did well on raising his lambs and naughty lamb grew too big.

The livestock is set to the abbattoir (say 5,000 per day plus) go through a quick system (blar blar) hung on a hook and cut and packed (some cuts frozen to aid laser cutting by machinery - so some meat is pre frozen). Hardly dry aged (hung). LOts of foreign workers here along the line.

Some chicken is pretty fair (I dont buy cheap chicken - yuk!) but still cant understand how any supplier can sell a chicken so cheap. The demand of the supermarket puts terrible pressure on the farmer who has to employ cheapest labour - hence some of the terrible cruelty cases you read - not the farmers fault I'm afraid. I dont get people conplaining about the price of a once living animal - three pints of beer??? come one! In reality a chicken should be £10 plus and thats it. Its not the animals fault if you cant afford it, I love lobster but dont expect to be offered it value price. All animals deserve respect. Chickens on the shelf are hybrids, higher fat than many years ago (fact), have more grain and less taste. You can pay more for better chicken but you need a breed name to it - may have smaller breast but loads more taste and prob better nutrican.

Standard mince is pretty rough - its mainly from old milking cows, its not steak beef, it lacks flavour and is horrible.

Agree with anyone, spend a fortune on packaging, put a nice farmers face on it, rephase the name of the industrial unit to say "willow Farm" purchaser drawn in.

The organic debate is ok in some parts but isnt understood by many. Egg production is probably the best side of tradition v organic. However you need to buy good to get good (say clarence) but better would be farm gate, less packaging, mileage and smaller less industrial production. What you also need to understand with organic is it means more miles. The food has to be shipped in, the abbattoir could be miles away, the paperwork is only as good as the person being honest too. There isnt alot of difference between a good traditional pedigree farm v organic when it comes to beef and lamb. You still do the same treatments - worming, antibiotics etc.
Pork is having another bad time and shame that the supermarkets once again have promoted this grey, low fat, terrible meat that tastes awful. Poor pigs deserve better.

All in all you have to superstand the principal that the supermarket works on fast turnover and good profits and have no care at all about the producer (dont get drawn in) Tesco (I hate) owe the government over £100m in unpaid Tax but every penny counts - who too?

Unfortunately, after ploughing money into our high welfare, low density farming, with rare breeds, it was completely wasted in this area. I couldnt get the trade. There must be 10 supermarkets within a 2 mile radius of our farm. People still get drawn in by the BOGOF and convenience.

However, sorry to say many butchers only buy in from meat wholesalers which means some meat could come from anywhere in the country, no idea of the farmer or welfare, so you need to search for a proper butcher, even better farmers markets, but you can get yr meat delivered, many farmers sell direct and well deliver free too.

ALso have to point out that cheap food has its consequences. So there is no room for ignorance when bringing up our children of the future.

thanks bacon - food for thought, there is a local farm that sells meat nearby I am going to go and check that out.

Great post bacon - interesting information

To the OP - yes.

We periodically re-try meat from a supermarket because meat from local farm-based butcher (all locally sourced, mostly rare breed, low denisty/high welfare, but not, on the whole, organic) is so expensive, but supermarket meat (any supermarket) is a false economy in this household. It is just nasty and doesn't get eaten. Better to eat less/ less often, IMHO.

What I realised reading this thread was that I was raised on meat from the local butchers (just across the road from us so very local! - gone are those days for most of us!) And when I eat meat now I can take it or leave it, I'm not a fan of it.

It's occured to me that maybe it's because I was raised on good quality meat and as an adult I am buying rubbish.

The difference is though, my mum could afford to buy fresh meat every day to feed 6 people around her table on just my dad's wages as a carpenter, dh and I both work full time and couldn't afford to buy fresh meat everyday.

Either the wages are worth less these days or the meats gone up in price!

personally i think some supermarkets supply good meat and others not, just the same as butchers. my husband worked at a butchers when he was younger and its put him right off them - because it was a bad one. and don't speak to him about sausages from a butchers!

Of course that's true dreaming but IMO you always (hopefully) get what you pay for and the farmers are not being paid enough to produce good quality meat.