Comment on meat traceability issues being discussed in the news
Posted on: Jan 16 2013
John Penny & Sons are an 8th Generation family run abattoir who supply quality butchers shops across the county.
John Penny & Sons do not have any involvement with horse meat. We run an ethical and principled operation processing beef, lamb and pork from our site in Leeds, West Yorkshire. All of the meat sold from John Penny & Sons is traceable.
John Penny & Sons run the campaign to Save the High Butcher, which aims to put butcher’s quality meat British meat back on the dining table.
The decline of the high street butcher has been swift accelerated by challenging economic conditions. There used to be some 22,000 in the mid-80s, according to Ed Bedington, editor of the Meat Trades Journal. In 2010 there were just 6,553.
John Penny says, “For confidence and traceable meat, your local and reputable butcher will deliver and you know exactly what goes into your sausages and burgers. Supermarkets are increasingly pushing their suppliers on price margins, which results in a rise of cost cutting incidents such as this horse meat controversy.”
“At John Penny & Sons, we pride ourselves on our integrity. The way we shop for meat has been radically altered by the domination of faceless but convenient one stop shops that encourage the use of mass food production techniques to create high volumes. These techniques often reduce an animal’s quality of life which in turn affects the taste and quality of the meat we buy. It’s time that shoppers returned to their local butcher.”