The discovery of horse meat in a high profile brand of frozen burgers back on the 16th of January has led to outrage, a**e-covering and some serious spin doctoring from all quarters and producers and retailers alike are re-examining and re-fortifying their supply chains. Ikea has withdrawn its weiner sausages from sale, Tesco is vowing to back British farmers and only yesterday, the Food Standards Agency revealed horse meat DNA in even more products.
Needless to say frozen burger sales have plummeted 43% (source: Guardian 26th Feb 2013) and I suspect other family 'mince-based' favourites like frozen lasagne and spaghetti bolognese won't be far behind.
The press are loving it.
But it's not just sensational headlines that have been shifting papers. Co-op placed a full page ad in last Saturday's Times newspaper and Tesco have also boosted the media's advertising coffers by placing full page ads in the Metro newspaper starting with a rapid fire response the day after the scandal broke followed by a double page spread this week.
I'm sure this is all intended to reassure their shoppers. But quite frankly, when I turned the page and saw it, all that registered was 'blah blah blah' and rather than being reassured, I was left thinking 'what a load of s**t'.
How cynical you may be thinking. And you're right.
The damage has been done, another dent left in consumers' waning confidence and with trust at an all time low, it will take more than a couple of ads to restore it. And every subsequent exposé will serve to underscore this deepening lack of faith in the world around us.
Or will it?
Do you think we can find it within ourselves to trust again?
What is it going to take?
4 comments:
Chances are we carnivores have been munching on donkey for years. If, at the end of all this, supply chains are shortened and local farmers are given a boost then this can only be a good thing, I think.
i agree Jack. Do you think we are outraged that we (you red meat carnivores anyway) have been eating horse meat per se or that we didn't know we were?
It seems so obvious now that all these cheap burgers/ready meals/sausages must have had corners cut to be that price.
There must have been a glut of east european horses for it to be this prevalent. What would have happened if the horses ran out and this had beem discovered?
I think you're right, a lot of trust has been destroyed, until we forget all about it of course.
How true Charlie. Interestingly horse meat is eaten quite openly in some countries but I don't think it'll catch on here now...
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