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| Horsemeat scandal: mystery meat at the food bank close to foodies' paradise | Horsemeat scandal: mystery meat at the food bank close to foodies' paradise |
| (3 days later) | |
| A poster of Orphan Annie, a 15-year-old Welsh Black cross cow, looms over the meat counter at London's Borough Market, the mother lode for the capital's elite foodie culture. In the fridges below are well-hung dark red chops and roasts taken from her offspring. | A poster of Orphan Annie, a 15-year-old Welsh Black cross cow, looms over the meat counter at London's Borough Market, the mother lode for the capital's elite foodie culture. In the fridges below are well-hung dark red chops and roasts taken from her offspring. |
| "There she is, healthy and happy," says Lizzie Vines, the farmer, who with her husband Richard, sells meat reared from Annie's herd on fertilizer-and-pesticide-free fields in Wiltshire and Dartmoor. "She has a couple of breeding daughters, but the male offspring are good for the pot." | |
| Too grisly for some perhaps, but with the horsemeat scandal unfolding across European industrial estates to widening disgust, a sales pitch involving bovine family trees and talk of chalk downs and peat uplands is what more and more consumers want to hear – but only if they can afford to care. | Too grisly for some perhaps, but with the horsemeat scandal unfolding across European industrial estates to widening disgust, a sales pitch involving bovine family trees and talk of chalk downs and peat uplands is what more and more consumers want to hear – but only if they can afford to care. |
| Business is booming at Borough Market among the affluent middle classes, but there is a widening chasm between those who can and can't pay the price for knowing where their food comes from. | Business is booming at Borough Market among the affluent middle classes, but there is a widening chasm between those who can and can't pay the price for knowing where their food comes from. |
| At one extreme, an organic sirloin steak direct from the Rhug estate in north Wales sells for £48/kilo at Borough – almost three times the price of Tesco's sirloin and 15 times more than Aldi mince. At the other, 250,000 people now rely on handouts, including the cheapest tinned cuts, from the UK's 309 food banks, new figures reveal. The number of people queueing for free food has doubled over the last nine months and the Trussell Trust – which runs the banks for people referred by the Citizens Advice Bureau, local authorities and the benefits agencies – is launching three more every week. | At one extreme, an organic sirloin steak direct from the Rhug estate in north Wales sells for £48/kilo at Borough – almost three times the price of Tesco's sirloin and 15 times more than Aldi mince. At the other, 250,000 people now rely on handouts, including the cheapest tinned cuts, from the UK's 309 food banks, new figures reveal. The number of people queueing for free food has doubled over the last nine months and the Trussell Trust – which runs the banks for people referred by the Citizens Advice Bureau, local authorities and the benefits agencies – is launching three more every week. |
| One of the busiest is the Pecan centre two miles south of Borough, in Peckham. Tins of protein – budget meatballs, hotdogs and corned beef – are the most prized items for the lengthening queue of mothers and children. | One of the busiest is the Pecan centre two miles south of Borough, in Peckham. Tins of protein – budget meatballs, hotdogs and corned beef – are the most prized items for the lengthening queue of mothers and children. |
| Suzanne Salami, below left, a single mother of three, subsists on just £30 a week and is angered by the way the horsemeat scandal is hitting the poorest hardest. "When you can't afford to buy anything to eat, [or] ask where meat comes from and if it's sustainable, it is not fair," she said. "I am being made to eat stuff I don't know about and I am being let down. It's like we're being told to eat and shut up." She was particularly worried about the potential health impacts of traces of equine painkillers found in horsemeat in the food chain by the Food Standards Agency this week. | Suzanne Salami, below left, a single mother of three, subsists on just £30 a week and is angered by the way the horsemeat scandal is hitting the poorest hardest. "When you can't afford to buy anything to eat, [or] ask where meat comes from and if it's sustainable, it is not fair," she said. "I am being made to eat stuff I don't know about and I am being let down. It's like we're being told to eat and shut up." She was particularly worried about the potential health impacts of traces of equine painkillers found in horsemeat in the food chain by the Food Standards Agency this week. |
| Also at the food bank was John Steven, who said that until recently he had been surviving mainly on apples. "If you know it's horse and you're hungry, it makes no odds because it fills your stomach," said Steven, who was queueing for his three bags of donated food. "It's when they don't tell you that I draw the line." | Also at the food bank was John Steven, who said that until recently he had been surviving mainly on apples. "If you know it's horse and you're hungry, it makes no odds because it fills your stomach," said Steven, who was queueing for his three bags of donated food. "It's when they don't tell you that I draw the line." |
| Knowing where food comes from is practically a fetish at Borough Market. There's a cheesemonger who jets to eastern France every five weeks to select only the nuttiest wheels of Comté and a vendor offering black truffles from Le Marche in Italy at £150/100g. For £4.50 you can be assured your 1.5kg bag of potatoes was grown by Lucy and Anthony Carroll of Tiptoe farm in Northumberland. | Knowing where food comes from is practically a fetish at Borough Market. There's a cheesemonger who jets to eastern France every five weeks to select only the nuttiest wheels of Comté and a vendor offering black truffles from Le Marche in Italy at £150/100g. For £4.50 you can be assured your 1.5kg bag of potatoes was grown by Lucy and Anthony Carroll of Tiptoe farm in Northumberland. |
| Here food is also entertainment, something completely missing from the doled-out cheap tins in Peckham. Tourists pour through, snapping pictures of immaculate, unskinned rabbit and partridges at the game stall. A lucky few, like Erica Morse, 46, a therapist from south London, do their weekly shop here. She spends about £120 for two people and had just filled her bags with Dartmoor beef, duck and a selection of handmade cheeses. | Here food is also entertainment, something completely missing from the doled-out cheap tins in Peckham. Tourists pour through, snapping pictures of immaculate, unskinned rabbit and partridges at the game stall. A lucky few, like Erica Morse, 46, a therapist from south London, do their weekly shop here. She spends about £120 for two people and had just filled her bags with Dartmoor beef, duck and a selection of handmade cheeses. |
| "I know that I'm buying into a fantasy," she said. "As long as that keeps me happy I don't mind. Food says a lot about how we think about ourselves. I know it's expensive, but the quality is different. The meat here tastes of meat, and I know the traders as I've been shopping here for 10 years and it's a little like shopping in a village where you know all the guys." | "I know that I'm buying into a fantasy," she said. "As long as that keeps me happy I don't mind. Food says a lot about how we think about ourselves. I know it's expensive, but the quality is different. The meat here tastes of meat, and I know the traders as I've been shopping here for 10 years and it's a little like shopping in a village where you know all the guys." |
| For the traders, the horsemeat scandal is a vindication of their obsession with promoting producers. | For the traders, the horsemeat scandal is a vindication of their obsession with promoting producers. |
| "There's a larger debate going on about how the large multiples [such as supermarket chains] drive down the price they will pay the producer," said Dominic Coyte, who runs the Borough Cheese Company. "The horsemeat situation is a great example of the problem created when the provenance is detached from the point of purchase. Places like this allow you to get close to where things come from." | "There's a larger debate going on about how the large multiples [such as supermarket chains] drive down the price they will pay the producer," said Dominic Coyte, who runs the Borough Cheese Company. "The horsemeat situation is a great example of the problem created when the provenance is detached from the point of purchase. Places like this allow you to get close to where things come from." |
| But is it possible to bridge the gap from knowing the family tree of the £7.50 veal chops to the tangled global trading and possible criminality that results in horsemeat lasagne? | But is it possible to bridge the gap from knowing the family tree of the £7.50 veal chops to the tangled global trading and possible criminality that results in horsemeat lasagne? |
| Kath Dalmeny, policy director of Sustain, a campaign for better food and farming, said the effect of supermarket price wars on the supply chain has to be better policed. "When you apply special offers to meat you have to put pressure on suppliers to cut their costs in order to keep the contract," she said. "That chain is going to break at some point." | Kath Dalmeny, policy director of Sustain, a campaign for better food and farming, said the effect of supermarket price wars on the supply chain has to be better policed. "When you apply special offers to meat you have to put pressure on suppliers to cut their costs in order to keep the contract," she said. "That chain is going to break at some point." |
| She said the government's appointment of an adjudicator between supermarkets, suppliers and farmers with the power to impose fines could provide limited help in preventing unfair treatment of suppliers, which may lead to corruption of products. | She said the government's appointment of an adjudicator between supermarkets, suppliers and farmers with the power to impose fines could provide limited help in preventing unfair treatment of suppliers, which may lead to corruption of products. |
| Ministers should also use the buying power of hospitals, schools, councils and central government (together estimated at £2bn a year) to establish a market for shorter meat supply chains. "I would make it compulsory for school and hospital meals to use high-quality food with shortened supply chains," she said. "The health secretary Jeremy Hunt and the education secretary Michael Gove could do this overnight." | Ministers should also use the buying power of hospitals, schools, councils and central government (together estimated at £2bn a year) to establish a market for shorter meat supply chains. "I would make it compulsory for school and hospital meals to use high-quality food with shortened supply chains," she said. "The health secretary Jeremy Hunt and the education secretary Michael Gove could do this overnight." |
| Even if they did, it will take much longer to bridge the two-mile gap in food culture between Borough Market and Peckham. When Prince Charles reopened the market on Thursday, he was given a £176 leg of carefully sourced wild boar. | Even if they did, it will take much longer to bridge the two-mile gap in food culture between Borough Market and Peckham. When Prince Charles reopened the market on Thursday, he was given a £176 leg of carefully sourced wild boar. |
| Down in Peckham, Suzanne Salami had an urgent and anxious question about her free tin of budget corned beef as she went to pick up her boys: "Does it contain horse? It really matters to me if it's not what it says." | Down in Peckham, Suzanne Salami had an urgent and anxious question about her free tin of budget corned beef as she went to pick up her boys: "Does it contain horse? It really matters to me if it's not what it says." |