Appreciated it enough? Good. Let's crack on with the mane point (I can't stop, I'm sorry) of this post.
So I was in Tesco avoiding talking to humans by using the self-service machines (our generation just do NOT like to interact personally do we...) and I spotted this huge cardboard stand with leaflets:
Excuse the image quality - snapped it quickly and didn't want to look odd taking photos in Tesco.
So obviously on my way out I grabbed a leaflet and will insert pictures below in case people can't get their hands on one:
The test reads:
"The problem we've had with some of our meat lately is about more than burgers and bolognese. It's about some of the ways we get meat to your dinner table. It's about the whole food industry. And it has made us realise, we really do need to make it better. We've been working on it, but we need to keep going, go further, move quicker. We know that our supply chain is too complicated. So we're making it simpler. We know that the more we work with British farmers the better. We've already made sure that all our beef is from the UK and Ireland. And now we're moving on to our fresh chickens. By July, they'll all be from UK farms too. No exceptions. For farmers do what they do best, they need to they've got our support. We know this because of the work we've been doing with our daily farmers to make sure they always get paid above the market price for milk. We know that, no matter what you spend, everyone deserves to eat well. We know that all this will only work if we are open about what we do. And if you're not happy, tell us. Seriously. This is it. We are changing."
Now, numerous things about this piece of text kind of grinded my gears. I'm going to do my best to work in a chronological order here. Firstly I dislike the poem-esque layout and the attempts to be cute. To be honest, I wasn't TOO fussed about the horse meat thing. I'm pretty sure we've all eaten things like this throughout our life that haven't been discovered. Of course, had I known I would steer clear but it's too late to care now and you know what? If you're concerned about bute contamination then you should stop eating all non-organic meat and milk because you're ingesting multiple hormones and antibiotics. Anyway, to me, this is too colloquial. It sounds like something Innocent Drinks would release. It was found that the animal that millions of people keep as a pet was in food. It's the same as using dog meat at the end of the day. So no, Tesco. Not once in this does it mention the word "sorry" or any kind of synonym of that word.
Secondly, I feel like they're attempting to shift the blame slightly by including "it's about the whole food industry". If I remember correctly Waitrose had no problems and I'm assuming big names like Harrods had no issues either. So again, no, Tesco. This is YOUR problem, not the food industry. Each supermarket should take their own blame for cutting corners. Not everyone can or does live by the old "never skimp on meat" rule.
Thirdly, don't try and say "we know that working with British farmers is better" like it's a new thing. EVERY supermarket should be doing this. Seasonal things like fruit, fair enough but last time I checked cows survive all year round so why haven't you been living by this since day one? This is an English company. Why not pump money back into your own economy?
"We've already made sure all our beef is from the UK and Ireland and now we're moving on to our fresh chickens" - again, why was this not the norm before? As a British company with a British founder, surely you'd want to do everything in your power to help British workers. Things like this genuinely annoy me. It's not even on a person-based level - it's more patriotic for me. I think it's important to help keep your country afloat fiscally and on a social level in terms of employment. A massive corporation like Tesco could surely afford to dole out a few more pounds to make sure livestock is from the UK and Ireland as a basic standard. Why did a scandal push them to do this?
I don't know, to me, turning this into some kind of lesson was just annoying. Not once did they actually say sorry in the leaflet for letting this happen. I feel like they attempted to shift the blame onto the whole industry rather than just accepting it as their fault and they're tying to say this has taught them to be some kind of valiant helper to farmers by sourcing meat from only the UK and Ireland like it shouldn't have been happening before.
What do you think? Does this seem genuine or more of an excuse attempting to turn into something positive to you?
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