Complete and Utter Zebu

Last week, The Sunday Telegraph ran a piece about “spankingly fresh” Pret a Manger sushi that was actually imported frozen from Chile. Today, they go gunning for Pret again, this time over “fresh” chicken sandwiches that are made with frozen meat from Brazil, a little odd for a company boasting of using only “fresh, natural ingredients”.

With the exception of Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, the supermarkets often use Brazilian chicken in sandwiches and processed food. Often they don’t say where it comes from, although Tesco and Asda claim they plan to introduce labels soon that make the country of origin clear. The current ridiculous regulations mean that “produced in the UK” labels can be slapped on anything if the last significant processing change takes place here. Shove foreign meat in a pie, salt it, slice it, can it, cure it, do whatever you like to it, but as long as you do something, it is “produced in the UK”.

I saw Sainbury’s wafer-thin turkey slices today, for instance, that are “produced in the UK” but which also say “produced from British and Brazilian turkey”. Presumably, it’s pot luck which you get.

It was the sheer effrontery of Bird’s Eye, however, that really took me aback. My eye was drawn to their “Great British Menu” Roast Beef in Homestyle Gravy. You might imagine from the cover with its green and decidedly domestic landscape that it’s British. Yet turn it over and read that it’s “made in Britain from imported beef”, though from where, they don’t say.

What about Bird’s Eye’s “Great British Menu” roast turkey dinner? With the same lush landscape in the background, it boasts that it comes with “homestyle gravy, roast potatoes, Lincolnshire sausage and garden vegetables”. Yet, on the back, it says “made in the Republic of Ireland with imported turkey”.

So, not only is it not made with British meat, it isn’t even processed in the UK. There’s nothing British about it at all except the cheek of the blurb on the back.

“Great British Menu is a range of hearty dishes inspired by the nation’s favourite recipes which we Brits come back to time and time again. Cooked with care, we only use the finest ingredients.”

Sadly, Lincolnshire sausages don’t have to come from Lincolnshire any more than Cumberland sausages have to come from Cumbria or Lancashire hot pot from Lancs.

It seems to work in both directions, too. On the same scouting expedition I saw Toulouse sausages in Sainsbury’s which were made with “coarsely chopped British pork”. Apparently, the red wine’s French though.