Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620
- 639)
MONDAY 9 MARCH 1998
MR BARRY
MARTYN AND
MR TONY
COMBES
620. Is there any possibility you may be able
to dictate to your suppliers the kind of meat that they source
and where they source their meat for their processed products
like meat pies and so on?
(Mr Martyn) There is to some extent and
we are starting to do that. We have to keep one eye on the commercial
realities of the environment we are trading in but, yes, we are
starting to do that and we are starting to test that. Our suppliers
are very quick to point out how much that would cost to do so
also we want to work out ways of doing it without increasing the
price to the consumer.
621. Firstly, it might increase the quality
and, secondly, if everybody does it it does not matter about the
extra cost because you are all paying it.
(Mr Martyn) I agree.
Mr Livsey
622. You say you are sourcing 20 per cent of
your beef from Ireland.
(Mr Martyn) Historically, yes.
623. What proportion of that is frozen burgers?
(Mr Martyn) Frozen burgers does not come
under my remit as fresh foods. If you want me to comment on that,
I can do. We have been buying frozen burgers from southern Ireland
for five or six years. The reasons for going there in the first
place were the quality of the product and competitive pricing.
We could not do that from the mainland. I am pleased to say our
frozen food team is actively looking at sourcing those in the
UK at the moment and we have our own beef processing plant and
recently the team went there to look at whether they could actually
buy material from our own plant.
624. I will not delay the committee but I am
tempted to ask you this: you said that frozen burgers were a totally
different part of the business. So how much of the business is
frozen burgers and things like that?
(Mr Martyn) It depends where you want
to go with frozen food. If we think of all the processed frozen
foods, they are very much a branded driven part of the business.
I had better not quote all the brand names here but you can all
think of them. It is very much a processed area. My remit is to
look after the fresh food part of the business.
625. Do you think we could have some figures
from Safeway on this—as to what proportion of your meat
is frozen meat? Would that be possible?
(Mr Martyn) We will do our very best.
When it is a part of an ingredient of a frozen product it gets
tricky but we can give you our very best estimates.[8]
Mr Jones
626. Could I suggest there was another reason
why you felt you had to change your purchasing policy more towards
the UK which was you had a pretty bad press recently?
(Mr Martyn) I think all the retailers
have had a very bad press recently.
627. Let me just quote to you what the Farmers'
Weekly said on 30th January. It identified both Somerfield and
Safeway as "providing the least support to the British beef
industry".
(Mr Combes) Can I answer that? I am very
grateful for the question because it gives me the opportunity
to say in public that Farmers' Weekly put out a press release
the day before that magazine was printed saying they had made
a mistake and that we should not have been included in their "hall
of shame". We faxed that out to lots of farmers and they
faxed it out to lots of media, but they have refused to print
that press release in that magazine so I leave you to draw your
own conclusions.
628. You do not regard yourselves as one of
the two companies that have done least to support British beef?
(Mr Combes) Far from it. I think we are
certainly not part of the problem and we would like to be part
of the solution.
629. Can I ask you how you deal with your suppliers?
Do you deal with abattoirs direct or individual farmers direct?
(Mr Martyn) We are dealing with abattoirs
who are typically processors as well—a mixture. We do not
deal directly with farmers; we have communication with farmers
through the Farmers' Union of Wales, NFU, etc; we do not operate
any producer clubs.
630. Are any of your abattoirs in Wales?
(Mr Martyn) No. Not at the moment.
631. Do you intend to review that policy?
(Mr Martyn) Yes. We are always happy
to review the policy provided we can get the scale of product
moving through the abattoir and the correct quality.
632. In terms of your relationships with abattoirs,
are you able to ask them to trace for you where that meat comes
from if a customer should ask in one of your shops?
(Mr Martyn) Yes. We have our own farm
assurance scheme which covers the whole production cycle. As far
as the traceability goes (which is important) we would typically
be able to trace a retail pack back to a group of farmers. That
could be from one to eight, probably. I know some farmers think
we should be able to go back to a farm and a product. If we look
at beef, those of us in the trade will know that you mature product
at different times so if you actually think of the logistics as
you are holding product for maturation, etc, for a number of days
or weeks, to get closer than that needs probably a DNA scheme
and we believe our traceability is certainly equal to the best
in the industry.
633. I think you can probably understand the
feeling of frustration amongst perhaps some people in the industry
who felt that a lot of supermarkets were trading on the fact that
they had traceability schemes but actually, when push came to
shove, they were unable to produce it.
(Mr Martyn) I think the key is we are
buying farm assured products and that really is the guarantee
of the quality.
634. Can you tell us, in terms of your purchasing
policy, whether you have a policy of trying to have regionally
based purchasing groups or do you do it on a central basis?
(Mr Martyn) As I said earlier, we do
not have purchasing groups or farmers' clubs—we have abattoirs
and processors that supply us. We are a national company so we
have retail outlets throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern
Ireland now so we have processors set up to support that geographic
spread.
Chairman
635. On that point, you say you do not have
producer clubs but do you pay your suppliers above the rate for
the quality in the same way as producer clubs do?
(Mr Martyn) Our abattoir suppliers would
pay above the market rate to get the correct quality.
636. Is that a fixed amount or are they simply
buying better meat?
(Mr Martyn) Our different suppliers would
be offering slightly different schemes but would be offering a
clear premium for the quality of product we want in order to obtain
it.
Mr Caton
637. From your memorandum, and from what you
have told us, I can understand your policy of labelling full farm
assurance you have mentioned. I am less sure about your policy
of labelling for country of origin. Do you label British, Welsh,
Scotch? Some retailers, as we have heard this afternoon, just
have Welsh lamb for instance and sell it as Welsh lamb in Wales.
What is your policy?
(Mr Martyn) Starting off with Wales,
we have Welsh lamb labelled as "Welsh lamb" in Wales.
Our serve-over counters in Wales have "Welsh reared"
beef and lamb. Our serve-over counters in England have "Welsh
lamb" on them. In Scotland we have "Scottish beef"
labelled, "Scottish pork" and "Scottish lamb"
labelled. Everything else we sell is labelled "Safeway farm
assured British beef", "lamb" or "pork"
currently.
Ms Jackie Lawrence
638. I have a Safeway stores in my constituency
and sometime ago, before the height of this situation now, I went
round to have a look at the way meat was labelled. In Safeway,
in Haverfordwest in my constituency, there was fresh meat there
labelled just "Packed in the UK". Have you changed that
policy?
(Mr Martyn) We have changed that policy.
I think it is our job to respond to consumer needs and we have
consumers and farmers saying "We want clear labelling"
and we are happy to do that. We have not done that on, say, beef
in the past because we have been selling Safeway quality beef
to our consumers. For the last twenty years it has all been British
beef with an element of Irish in there.
639. So the meat I was looking at in Safeway
at that stage which said "Packed in the UK" would actually
have been part of the 20 per cent you previously sourced from
southern Ireland?
(Mr Martyn) It may have been British
or it may have been from southern Ireland.
8 Note from witness: We would estimate that
19.35% of our total meat sales are made up of Frozen Meat. This
is broken down as follows: Frozen Poultry 11.55%, Frozen Burgers
3.65%, Frozen raw Meat 3.25%, Product ingredients (e,g, beef in
frozen Lasagne.) 0.9%, Balance fresh Meat 81.65%. Back
| 
