Richard Haddock Buy on basis of provenance, not price

A FEW years ago an old friend and colleague David Hill and I had a brainwave. Well, not a brainwave as such because it had actually been staring us in the face.

But we realised that the beef and lamb that were being produced on farms in the South West were not merely the best in Britain and not just the best in Europe: they were without a shadow of a doubt world class.

So we set up a scheme to promote and market them. Some years later others had the same idea and South West Beef and Lamb became registered local products under EU regulations, joining the large but still elite ranks of Europe’s most cherished foodstuffs.

They fully deserve that ranking. Grass-fed beef and lamb are not only more natural products with vastly superior flavour they are nutritionally superior, as regular scientific research confirms. Added to that they’re the product of truly virtuous farming systems where inputs are kept to a minimum and which help to create some most attractive landscapes in the of the country.

That said, I find it increasingly difficult to believe that South West beef farmers are no more immune to the chill economic winds now sweeping the sector that farmers in any other place in the country.

We all know what the problem is even though few people in officialdom are, as usual, prepared to put their heads above the parapet to say so. The source of the current collapse in beef prices lies squarely with the huge volumes of cheap Eastern European beef arriving here via Ireland and dragging down market prices to ruinous levels.

I firmly believe this would never have happened – at least to the catastrophic extent it has – had more been done to promote British beef in general and beef from the South West in particular.

To a certain extent we have been hogtied by EU anti-competition laws which prevent any member state claiming their food products are superior to anyone else’s. But within the circumscribed limitations there has been plenty of scope for promoting the domestic product and instilling a degree of brand loyalty into consumers.

That has manifestly failed to happen.

Even if it recognised the need to do something to help beef producers in this way, the AHDB has shown a pitiful lack of energy in talking up the virtues of what has always been and continues to be one of the great, iconic British foodstuffs.

Consumers have been left to make their own choices uninformed and uninfluenced by anything other than price and successive governments have been content to let it happen in order to help keep food prices low and punters happy.

We are approaching a point where we shall, after more that 40 years, be able to tell the world that British beef really is best without the risk of being carpeted in Brussels.

More to the point we shall be able to deliver that message loud and clear to our own consumers and, I trust, persuade more of them to start buying on the basis of provenance rather than merely price.

But it will need a new and dynamic marketing organisation to do it because the agency currently in charge is not up to the job.

It also needs to be put in place urgently because I and many others have genuine fears that unless we can stop the rot caused by unsustainably low prices in the not-toodistant future, there simply won’t be a South West or even British beef sector left to promote.

We are approaching a point where we shall be

able to tell the world that British beef is best