Volume 12: Livestock Farming
3. Promotion and marketing of dairy and beef products
Developments between producers, retailers and consumers in beef marketing

3.10 One of the consequences of the UK population's increased urbanisation over the last 150 years has been the loss of direct contact between farmers and consumers. However, over the last 10 to 15 years, public interest in the source and handling of foodstuffs has grown - prompted, among other things, by the 'salmonella in eggs' crisis in the late 1980s and by BSE. Thus meat retailers, particularly supermarkets, are increasingly interested in quality assurance and controls of various sorts. They have introduced schemes that provide an audit trail from farm to consumer and assurance about the origin, husbandry and health of the cattle and other livestock. ¹

3.11 Before the introduction of such quality assurance schemes in the mid-1980s, cattle and beef were largely traded as a commodity product, with little regard paid to the farm of origin. Assurance schemes initially did not make much progress other than in Scotland. However, by 1995 about 30 per cent of all beef produced in Great Britain and about 50 per cent in Scotland came from assurance schemes. ² The MLC has played an active role in fostering and seeking to standardise such schemes. ³