Supermarket giants are urged not to stock ‘unethical’ meat
SUPERMARKET bosses are being urged to commit to not selling imported food that is produced to lower standards after any trade deal with America is agreed.
Ten major organisations including the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), Friends of the Earth and food and farming campaign Sustain have written to nine of Britain’s biggest supermarkets, warning that any reduction in standards would increase health inequalities and put British farmers’ livelihoods at risk. Their call has been backed by 15 leading food policy academics.
The letter to Waitrose, Tesco, Lidl, Aldi, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Asda and the Co-Operative warns about the effect of ‘cheap food’ on low-income consumers and that its manufacture involves ‘unethical, dirtier or more risky farming practices’.
Signatories include Professor Tim Lang, food policy expert at City University, London, who says a deal with the US, where animal welfare standards are lower, chickens are disinfected with chlorine and cattle treated with hormones, ‘ could squander decades of winning higher food safety standards’.
He also raises concerns about the use of antibiotics and pesticides.
The CIEH has expressed worry, too, that cheap US imports would disproportionately harm Britons on lower incomes and could lead to more obesity and diet-related diseases such as diabetes.
Gary McFarlane, CIEH director, said: ‘The poorest households are likely to buy and eat the cheapest foods and the most significantly deprived people in our society suffer health inequalities.
‘The question that should be asked is why do we need this extra food supply? Britain is overflowing with meat and dairy produce.’
These issues chime with recent findings about how Covid-19 has particularly affected the obese, those suffering diet-related condit i ons and black and minority ethnic groups.
The Lancashire-based supermarket firm Booths became the first chain to speak out against any erosion in standards, putting pressures on other big stores to follow suit.
It issued a statement supporting t he National Farmers’ Union petition which this week passed a million signatures and calls on the Government to put into law rules that prevent food being imported unless produced to the same high standards in this country.
Booths says: ‘British farmers and producers need the support of Government to protect our food standards and preserve livelihoods.’
Consumer magazine Which? has published a survey showing that 72 per cent of the public did not want products such as chlorinewashed chicken.
There is particular anxiety among the public and experts over the use of antibiotics in US livestock farming. Debbie Wood, executive director of CIEH, said there was ‘a clear public health issue’ linked to the US trade talks and that chlorine washing, a process used in the US to deal with hygiene issues arising from intensive farming methods, was not an effective disinfectant.
She said: ‘This may help explain why rates of microbiological food poisoning are six times higher in the US than the UK.
‘And it’s not just health – animal welfare is very important to many people across our country.’