Whistleblower claims Russell Hume sold foreign beef as British

[News]

So the Russell Hulme Investigation seems set to get bigger:

From its Red Tractor being removed in January: https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-...ussell-hume-meat-investigation/562715.article

To the ITV report last night: https://www.itv.com/news/2018-02-16...tion-british-beef-meat-food-standards-agency/

Allegations of a cover up over 3 weeks ago and only now the details are coming out.

 

[Werzle]

Disgrace

 

[Happy]

Makes a complete mockery of the various hoop jumping quality assurance schemes we are told we have to be in when cowboys like these guys, 2 Sisters and those involved in horsegate couldn’t care less further down the chain.

 

[upnortheast]

Wonder if there is so much pressure to compete on price they have to be dodgy to survive.?

 

[News]

In between this they even allowed production to start at one facility: https://www.food.gov.uk/news-update...on-allowed-to-resume-at-one-russell-hume-site

Hopefully Red Tractor didn't endorse this.

 

[haymaker80]

The story about foreign beef being labelled as British sounds like some sh!t stirring by a disgruntled former employee, hardly a reliable source. Wouldn't be surprised if it did turn out to be true mind......

 

[Happy]

The story about foreign beef being labelled as British sounds like some sh!t stirring by a disgruntled former employee, hardly a reliable source. Wouldn't be surprised if it did turn out to be true mind......

Do you think?
I’d be more surprised if it wasn’t going on.
2 sisters not the first big company to be caught mixing & relabelling out of date meat either.

 

[gone up the hill]

In between this they even allowed production to start at one facility: https://www.food.gov.uk/news-update...on-allowed-to-resume-at-one-russell-hume-site

Hopefully Red Tractor didn't endorse this.

They only suspended two sisters for 1 week......

RT scheme is losing credibility by the day, I would like Minette Batters ( who has/ does sit on the RT board ) to explain why she wont hear a bad word said or accept that changes are needed post farmgate about the RT scheme.

 

[hendrebc]

Ive heard rumors of foreign beef coming into ireland a while ago now. First it was eastern european beef coming in and then south american. It was coming into the slaughterhouses by the lorryload at night and repackeged as irish or british and sold as such.
Then heard more rumours of some of this beef being dna tested and found to contain dna from some south american beef breeds that could never be british beef and it was all hushed up pretty quickly. Who did the testing or what really happened i have no idea i wasnt really paying attention thinking it was just a story which it still could be.
I thought it was all rubbish because i did hear it in a facebook group from someone who said he worked in a slaughterhouse were this went on but it does make you wonder wether what i was told was true all along. And if it is what the hell else is going on

 

[Werzle]

Irelands fast becoming the easy way in and out of anything dodgy from our island. No doubt lessons will be learnt! If a farmer got caught pulling these tricks they'd get the book thrown at them but big business gets a slap on the wrist.

 

[hendrebc]

Irelands fast becoming the easy way in and out of anything dodgy from our island. No doubt lessons will be learnt! If a farmer got caught pulling these tricks they'd get the book thrown at them but big business gets a slap on the wrist.

Dont say it too loudly hopefully we can still send lamb over to europe through ireland after brexit

 

[Werzle]

Feck em

 

[joe soapy]

Was in a big cutting plant a few years back, they were stripping steaks from outdated packs, covering them with
spice and repacking for sale

 

[Old McDonald]

Ive heard rumors of foreign beef coming into ireland a while ago now. First it was eastern european beef coming in and then south american.

I know I have cut short what you posted and it is not my intention to take what you said out of context, I am merely using the quote as an introduction.

It must be within the EU rules to import meat from anywhere.

I always buy our meat because I can converse a little with the butchers and my wife cannot. I buy mainly from two major supermarket chains (with several butchers at really good meat counters) or an independent butcher. I regularly see meat, generally beef, from Eastern Europe, South America, Africa (mainly Namibia), Australia, and Britain in the supermarkets alongside Portuguese. Also NZ lamb. I think I know this is where the meat is from because the labels tell me it is. I choose not buy E.E., S.A or African, but many others appear quite happy to do so. The E.E. beef should be up to a good standard, but it is always very dark and unpleasant looking, so I choose not to buy on a visual appraisement. I simply do not trust the quality of the S.A. or African.

 

[Highland Mule]

Was in a big cutting plant a few years back, they were stripping steaks from outdated packs, covering them with
spice and repacking for sale

I'm hoping you reported that to the relevant authorities? As the saying goes, if we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem.

 

[Alicecow]

Ive heard rumors of foreign beef coming into ireland a while ago now. First it was eastern european beef coming in and then south american. It was coming into the slaughterhouses by the lorryload at night and repackeged as irish or british and sold as such.
Then heard more rumours of some of this beef being dna tested and found to contain dna from some south american beef breeds that could never be british beef and it was all hushed up pretty quickly. Who did the testing or what really happened i have no idea i wasnt really paying attention thinking it was just a story which it still could be.
I thought it was all rubbish because i did hear it in a facebook group from someone who said he worked in a slaughterhouse were this went on but it does make you wonder wether what i was told was true all along. And if it is what the hell else is going on

Several years ago Justin McCarthy and a team at the Irish Farmers Journal researched beef and found that even the beef served in the department of agriculture was genetically south american. Also that cattle were moved from F&M areas into clean areas of Brazil before they were tagged, then slaughtered and exported to Europe as supposedly being from the clean area.

A couple of years after that I was in a local Craft Butcher (like RT for butchers) and they had the details of that weeks beef written up on a card on the front of the fridge.
It read :
Country of birth : Mayo
Country of rearing : Mayo
Country of slaughter : Mayo

I asked if Mayo had declared Independence as it was now claiming to be a country instead of a county!
Then I looked at the tag number........ It began with the letters RO. I asked where this was, joking that was it Romania or somewhere. The butcher quickly tried to reassure me that it really was Irish beef. I spent about 3 hours trawling the interweb for information and discovered that RO is indeed Romania, but also that if the animal arrives as a live import and remains alive in the country for 30 days or more then it must be retagged with an identifier for the country of which it is now resident, so it becomes Irish
If, however, it is slaughtered within 30 days of its arrival then it retains its original identity. These are the official EU rules.
After that they stopped writing the country identifier letters on the card, just the numbers. At that point I stopped buying beef off them

Buyer beware!

 

[joe soapy]

I'm hoping you reported that to the relevant authorities? As the saying goes, if we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem.

Questions were asked, seems was within the regulations.
Some of the mince on sale would have a problem meeting the labeling regs, I did put a lot of time
at the turn of the century looking at the rules, found the enforcement was the problem due to the cosy relationships trading standards had with the big retailers

 

[JCMaloney]

Its been going on for years. In my meat trade days it was common practice at catering butchers, irrespective of their NACB assurance scheme.
Then factor in the 30 day alive ruling in Ireland and the whole "Irish Beef" labelling was a standing joke....and that was a decade ago.

 

[Alicecow]

Its been going on for years. In my meat trade days it was common practice at catering butchers, irrespective of their NACB assurance scheme.
Then factor in the 30 day alive ruling in Ireland and the whole "Irish Beef" labelling was a standing joke....and that was a decade ago.

It's a Europe wide rule, not just Ireland.

 

[JCMaloney]

@Alicecow ... yup know that its just restaurants/caterers seem to view Ireland as fine and "part of the UK"..... were the product labelled as Romania/Poland et al the view would be much different.