TRUTH IS A BEAUTIFUL THING

Tales of deceit and fraud are rife in the food industry, and consumers are being duped into buying inferior products, but Guy Grieve is confident the truth will out

Tales of deceit are rife in the food industry, but Guy Grieve is confident the truth will out

As we go into a new and hopefully less horrendous year, my mind finds itself focusing a little on truth and honesty when it comes to business. Towards the end of last year a well-known hotel chain claimed they were using dived scallops from The Ethical Shellfish company. I came across my company name emblazoned on one of their menus and was a little confused as they have never used our dived scallops and in fact only ever bought dredged scallops from what I have seen.

Of course they quickly corrected their ‘mistake’. So many times I have seen restaurants and fishmongers selling ‘dived’ scallops when it is obvious to those in the know that the scallops are actually dredged. Once, I remember, we went to a well known restaurant in Edinburgh to celebrate their choice to buy our dived scallops. My eldest son and I ordered the dived scallops. They arrived sizzling in their shells and I just knew they were dredged even though it said, again, Ethical Shellfish Company on the menu.

A few questions to the waiter revealed that indeed they had been bought from a fish merchant who is so dodgy it wouldn’t surprise me if they were also selling Sarin to Assad. What particularly annoyed me was that all around I could see people tucking into their ‘dived’ scallops having paid a premium for the provenance. How would they feel, I wonder, if they discovered that they were eating a scallop with a very different origin? It actually sickened me.

Lies around food are so utterly profound – the deceived actually pay for, swallow and allow these lies to become part of their intimate physiology. As an aside there was once a great seafood restaurant in Oban called the Seafood Temple run by the incredible John Ogden, who is Oban’s equivalent to Oliver Reed. I remember once hearing how a diner asked; ‘Excuse me? Are these scallops dived?’ To which John rose to his full height and said in his fantastic gravelly voice: ‘No! Every last one of those scallops on your plate has been dredged from the sea bed.’ Now I like that. It’s honest. Far better than the sneaky types who in order to save pretty pennies tell big ugly lies.

Of course, the truth will eventually out, as was the case with Tam O’Braan, the self-styled ‘Mr Tea’ from the Wee Tea Plantation, who boasted that his Dalreoch Estate smoked white tea, costing £35 for 15g, had been crowned ‘best in the world’. After worming his way into such swanky joints as the Dorchester in London’s Mayfair, it emerged that no such award existed, and there was a large question mark over the tea’s supposed Scottish provenance.

And then there was the Hebridean Sea Salt company – remember that one? Hand harvested on Lewis and rightly supported by chefs who were excited to see another sea salt apart from Malden. Then it was discovered the salt was actually coming from Israel. Oi Vey! What next? Well, hopefully, what’s next is that The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will start ensuring that these medieval little scams will start to cause proper pain to the scammers. By the summer the CMA will publish guidance to businesses to ensure they do not deceive the public with false ‘green’ claims and credentials.

It’s great to see the CMA stepping into this murky world to offer some clarity and light. Sadly those of us in the industry cannot go about naming names as Scotland is too small for that and we don’t have the protection of the State.

However, when I next come across our hard-earned name for ethical produce being used by some slippery suit in order to milk an unsuspecting public I shall take a breath, move myself to a darkened room, pick up the phone and dial the CMA.

“

The deceived actually allow these lies to become part of their intimate physiology