United Kingdom-Supermarkets to buy local in 2009.

UNITED KINGDOM.

SUPERMARKETS BUY LOCAL..

Britain’s oldest supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, announced that from January 2009, all meat and chicken for the companies ready to eat meal range, will be sourced in the UK.

This is an additional 6,000 tons of chicken and 3,000 tons of beef a year, to be sourced from British farmers.

This means the company has gone full circle, prior to 1978 the company would not buy anything other than British beef, pork, lamb and poultry, in fact Sainsbury only began to by Ulster beef in 1978.

Meanwhile Waitrose supermarkets, who were the pioneer’s of barley beef in England, have decided on an identical policy.

Waitrose were the first supermarket to use 100% UK pork, in the ready cooked range, they claim.

Beef production in the UK was 882,000 tons in 2008, this is taking into consideration that cattle over 30 months were going back into the food chain.

The production in 2005 was 700,000 tons, while the cow cull was in progress.