All this mince puts meat industry through the grinder

RECENT falls in the price of beef have resulted in the National Beef Association accusing supermarkets of "undermining the industry through savage short-term discounts on beef".

"Mince, which is the cheapest form of beef on offer, is being sold at give-away prices. These comprehensively undermine the position of beef as a high-cost, high-quality product that is more than capable of earning much more money for retailers than it does at present," according to NBA director, Kim Haywood.

The value of finished prime cattle has plunged by up to 10 per cent since mid January at which point steers and heifers peaked at 290p per kilo.

The NBA is worried prices could fall still further, plunging even more feeders into loss, unless retailers revise beef prices in line with production costs and also offer consumers a wider choice of cuts and joints. Haywood continued: "Selling it at current volumes and at current prices is suicide for the beef industry. It cannot survive if almost half the carcase, much of it beef that could otherwise be sold for higher prices, is chucked into the grinder.

"All because retailers want to make sure they do not lose customers to another store where mince is even cheaper."

The NBA is adamant that offering huge tonnages of minced beef as a retail lure, at almost the same bargain level as five-week-old broiler chicken, will be the death knell of an industry that has a two-and-a-half-year production cycle.

Haywood believes more beef could be sold for more money, earning substantially more income that, in turn, could then be re-distributed to retailer, processor and producer alike. Haywood added: "Back in March, the NBA warned that the beef sector was in danger of mincing itself to death because it had no chance of prospering if sales were focussed so heavily on its cheapest possible product."

"The solution to this problem remains the exercising of more retail imagination. Mince sales may be booming but its evolution from a last-on-the-list purchase for poorer people, to the most popular beef line of its day, is not a success story. If the beef sector is to survive, it must sell a bigger proportion of the carcase than it does now for much more money."