Dobbin Burgers
Discussion
Its not the meat that worries me, its breaking me gnashers on a shoe or stirrup 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9804632/Tes...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9804632/Tes...
My concern is that horse meat was in a production plant producing food for human consumption when horse meat would not normally be present. It's not as if it got there by accident. It was obviously a decision made by someone to use it which begs the question what else were they doing?
Finding a bit of pig DNA in a beef product is immaterial, especially at the levels they are taking about. Finding 29% horse meat in a burger is a bit of an issue.
Finding a bit of pig DNA in a beef product is immaterial, especially at the levels they are taking about. Finding 29% horse meat in a burger is a bit of an issue.
21TonyK said:
My concern is that horse meat was in a production plant producing food for human consumption when horse meat would not normally be present. It's not as if it got there by accident. It was obviously a decision made by someone to use it which begs the question what else were they doing?
Finding a bit of pig DNA in a beef product is immaterial, especially at the levels they are taking about. Finding 29% horse meat in a burger is a bit of an issue.
I couldnt agree more! Choosing to eat horse is fine but for a totally different species to be present is bonkers. Maybe things like this will bring home to people that buying from these places means they have very little idea what they are eating.Finding a bit of pig DNA in a beef product is immaterial, especially at the levels they are taking about. Finding 29% horse meat in a burger is a bit of an issue.
To me it shows 3 things:
1. Tesco pitch themselves at the same level as Sainsbury, Asda, Co-op et al - what I would deem tier 2 (1 is Waitrose and M&S, those lot are 2 (though personally I would put Asda below Sainsburys and Co-op), then you get tier 3 of Lidl, Aldi and everything.
I'm not being a snob here, Aldi and Lidl sell some good stuff (but some is awful) but they price it accordingly and they wouldn't try to lie about where they are in hierarchy of price/value.
This shows that Tesco's food is level 3 at best and the rest is marketing, or actually it is worse. So are people visiting Tesco being ripped off? If you want cheap food, go to Aldi or Lidl, if you want a cut above, presumably you shouldn't be going to Tesco but should be looking elsewhere.
2. Tesco's quality control standards etc must actually be lower than Aldi, Lidl etc, whose horse meat content was 300-900 times less. Put into context, unless my maths is wrong for Lidl/Aldi it was around 1 horse for every 333 - 1000 cows. For Tesco it was one horse for every 3 cows. That is absolutely crazy!
3. It hasn't shown me this yet, but it will. Despite this, the public will claim to be outraged, but will continue to go and spend £1 in every £7 at Tesco. This shows to me that Tesco really is too big and powerful for the people's good, because they can do whatever they like and people will still use it. I find it odd that Instagram says it might take some pictures and sell them for marketing and half its users vacate immediately, whereas Tesco can be exposed like this, where we are talking about the very fuel we sustain ourselves with, and people just think 'oh but its convenient' and pass it off rather than show that in reality it SHOULD BE THE CONSUMERS THAT HAVE THE POWER and decide where we should spend our money. I'm not saying there is a problem with horsemeat for health, but you have to wonder what other stuff is getting through the system, and what other things might have cropped up in those burgers that wouldn't even have a DNA to search for and whether we need to be asking questions about where we see Tesco in the marketplace and whether it is justified.
Can anyone who doesn't eat pork (85% of beefburgers and 2/3rs of all the beef products they analysed contained pork (to be fair I'm not sure if that was Tesco products, or everyone's products), could they ever buy meat from Tesco or these other suppliers again?
I am so lucky to have an excellent local butcher, who knows meat, sells meat and whose livelihood depends entirely on getting it right. If he was in the headlines, he would be out of business within a week. It is a shame that as a population we have lost the significance of how important that is.
1. Tesco pitch themselves at the same level as Sainsbury, Asda, Co-op et al - what I would deem tier 2 (1 is Waitrose and M&S, those lot are 2 (though personally I would put Asda below Sainsburys and Co-op), then you get tier 3 of Lidl, Aldi and everything.
I'm not being a snob here, Aldi and Lidl sell some good stuff (but some is awful) but they price it accordingly and they wouldn't try to lie about where they are in hierarchy of price/value.
This shows that Tesco's food is level 3 at best and the rest is marketing, or actually it is worse. So are people visiting Tesco being ripped off? If you want cheap food, go to Aldi or Lidl, if you want a cut above, presumably you shouldn't be going to Tesco but should be looking elsewhere.
2. Tesco's quality control standards etc must actually be lower than Aldi, Lidl etc, whose horse meat content was 300-900 times less. Put into context, unless my maths is wrong for Lidl/Aldi it was around 1 horse for every 333 - 1000 cows. For Tesco it was one horse for every 3 cows. That is absolutely crazy!
3. It hasn't shown me this yet, but it will. Despite this, the public will claim to be outraged, but will continue to go and spend £1 in every £7 at Tesco. This shows to me that Tesco really is too big and powerful for the people's good, because they can do whatever they like and people will still use it. I find it odd that Instagram says it might take some pictures and sell them for marketing and half its users vacate immediately, whereas Tesco can be exposed like this, where we are talking about the very fuel we sustain ourselves with, and people just think 'oh but its convenient' and pass it off rather than show that in reality it SHOULD BE THE CONSUMERS THAT HAVE THE POWER and decide where we should spend our money. I'm not saying there is a problem with horsemeat for health, but you have to wonder what other stuff is getting through the system, and what other things might have cropped up in those burgers that wouldn't even have a DNA to search for and whether we need to be asking questions about where we see Tesco in the marketplace and whether it is justified.
Can anyone who doesn't eat pork (85% of beefburgers and 2/3rs of all the beef products they analysed contained pork (to be fair I'm not sure if that was Tesco products, or everyone's products), could they ever buy meat from Tesco or these other suppliers again?
I am so lucky to have an excellent local butcher, who knows meat, sells meat and whose livelihood depends entirely on getting it right. If he was in the headlines, he would be out of business within a week. It is a shame that as a population we have lost the significance of how important that is.
Edited by zebedee on Wednesday 16th January 10:59
21TonyK said:
My concern is that horse meat was in a production plant producing food for human consumption when horse meat would not normally be present. It's not as if it got there by accident. It was obviously a decision made by someone to use it which begs the question what else were they doing?
Finding a bit of pig DNA in a beef product is immaterial, especially at the levels they are taking about. Finding 29% horse meat in a burger is a bit of an issue.
To start with it sounds like the processing was done in europe somewhere. So you can expect horse meat to be processed for human consumption in the same plants. So no health risk or anything like that.Finding a bit of pig DNA in a beef product is immaterial, especially at the levels they are taking about. Finding 29% horse meat in a burger is a bit of an issue.
My guess would be, they ran off a bunch of horse burgers for France/Spain etc, switched to doing Tesco beef, before the last of the horse had been processed through the machine. And the ones tested were in that few that had a bit of both in.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Although where I worked a few shifts it was just the wrong crumble on the wrong companies puddings, as we had a quite bit left over so finished that off. The switchover between the two companies products was literally someone shouting that they had started putting the new load in one end. No way to identify the new ones at the other end where the crumble went on. So there was a period of mix and match with crumbles and packaging before things get used up.
zebedee said:
Can anyone who doesn't eat pork (85% of beefburgers and 2/3rs of all the beef products they analysed contained pork (to be fair I'm not sure if that was Tesco products, or everyone's products), could they ever buy meat from Tesco or these other suppliers again?
I am so lucky to have an excellent local butcher, who knows meat, sells meat and whose livelihood depends entirely on getting it right. If he was in the headlines, he would be out of business within a week. It is a shame that as a population we have lost the significance of how important that is.
The pork DNA they detected was mainly trace amounts. You'll find that any burgers/minced beef you buy from that butcher will contain tiny traces of pork (unless they don't sell pork on the premises at all). There will be some cross-contamination, however minor - it's just inevitable.I am so lucky to have an excellent local butcher, who knows meat, sells meat and whose livelihood depends entirely on getting it right. If he was in the headlines, he would be out of business within a week. It is a shame that as a population we have lost the significance of how important that is.
Munter said:
21TonyK said:
My concern is that horse meat was in a production plant producing food for human consumption when horse meat would not normally be present. It's not as if it got there by accident. It was obviously a decision made by someone to use it which begs the question what else were they doing?
Finding a bit of pig DNA in a beef product is immaterial, especially at the levels they are taking about. Finding 29% horse meat in a burger is a bit of an issue.
To start with it sounds like the processing was done in europe somewhere. So you can expect horse meat to be processed for human consumption in the same plants. So no health risk or anything like that.Finding a bit of pig DNA in a beef product is immaterial, especially at the levels they are taking about. Finding 29% horse meat in a burger is a bit of an issue.
My guess would be, they ran off a bunch of horse burgers for France/Spain etc, switched to doing Tesco beef, before the last of the horse had been processed through the machine. And the ones tested were in that few that had a bit of both in.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Although where I worked a few shifts it was just the wrong crumble on the wrong companies puddings, as we had a quite bit left over so finished that off. The switchover between the two companies products was literally someone shouting that they had started putting the new load in one end. No way to identify the new ones at the other end where the crumble went on. So there was a period of mix and match with crumbles and packaging before things get used up.
Kind of inevitable that at some point there are slip ups. I have worked in both confectionery and pharmaceutical companies so have seen how these things can and do happen. I suspect that the producers themselves weren't aware of the fact they were using horse meat and it was either a mistake or deliberate action further down the chain.
Anyway, as others have said, hopefully it will make people think for a second next time they buy processed food. It's not going to make people stop eating burgers but I bet it will put a few people off.
More of a statement here: http://www.abpfoodgroup.com/
I was going to suggest people try and buy products processed by ABP in the uk...but it appears ABP are the supplier anyway!
Stuff from the Shropshire plants should be ok as I don't think they process anything but beef. If you buy stuff with UK 4073 EC on it then you can be sure it's beef only and slaughtered in the uk.
I was going to suggest people try and buy products processed by ABP in the uk...but it appears ABP are the supplier anyway!
Stuff from the Shropshire plants should be ok as I don't think they process anything but beef. If you buy stuff with UK 4073 EC on it then you can be sure it's beef only and slaughtered in the uk.
I love beef burgers, I regularly make my own and I take pride in them. My missus states the 1/2 pound rump burgers I made a few months back were the nicest burgers she had ever tasted. This one friday night I couldn't be bothered to make burgers so we bought some at Tesco.
Got them home, I thought they were pretty grim but ate them regardless, my GF took two bites and refused to eat any more, No wonder following this news
Got them home, I thought they were pretty grim but ate them regardless, my GF took two bites and refused to eat any more, No wonder following this news
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