US beef imported into Britain under the new trade deal could be served in restaurants in London and other parts of the country without diners knowing, a farming boss is warning.
The agreement allows for 13,000 tonnes of American beef to be exported to the UK, with the same amount of British beef eligible to go in the opposite direction across the Atlantic.
Neil Shand, chief executive of the National Beef Association, doubts that major supermarkets will “break rank” with their British beef suppliers to switch to US imports.
“What remains to be seen is where this product ends up...does it end up on retail shelves, I suspect probably not, it may end up in food service where its visibility is harder to see,” he said.
Mr Shand stressed that meat bought at wholesalers was clearly labelled.
“If you go into a restaurant you don’t see the label but you are entitled to ask,” he added on Times Radio.
“There is a possibility that a lot of it will end up in food service..you are entitled to know what you are eating and where it comes from...and there is an obligation to deliver that information.”
He added that farmers would be “watching very closely” to check that US beef imports do not include meat injected with growth hormones and that they also meet wider UK production, welfare and health standards.
Farming chiefs have welcomed the opening up of the US market for British beef and that the Government appears to be sticking to its “red line” on food standards for US beef imports.
“In volume terms, there is an argument that they have a bigger access or a larger quantity into our market,” Mr Shand added.
“But in the overall scheme of things, 13,000 tonnes is not a huge amount of beef, if you consider last year we imported 241,000 tonnes.”
Sir Keir Starmer, who unveiled the trade deal with Donald Trump in a live phone call, stressed that the UK’s “red line” on food standards had been kept, with growth hormone-injected beef and chlorinated chicken remaining illegal in Britain.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones told LBC Radio: “So our food standards have not changed. They were the same before this trade deal, as they are today, and they will not be watered down in the future.
“It’s something the British people expect the government to protect, and we’ll continue to honour that.”
Bur Ian McCubbine, a beef farmer in Surrey, urged the Government to be “stringent” about maintaining food standards.
“I’m slightly concerned that the US want to put stuff into us which is going to be lower quality,” he told BBC Radio.
“Sometimes the devil is in the detail.
“A Texas feed lock that is 90 miles long, how do we know what they are putting in...we just don’t know, that’s the worry.”
As part of the agreement, US import taxes on British cars were cut from 27.5% to 10%, while the 25% tariff on steel was axed.
The blanket 10% tariff imposed on imports from the UK by Trump as part of his sweeping “liberation day” announcement remains in place.
