Supervalu Must Clarify Their Sourcing Policy on Beef

IFA President Tim Cullinan said that Supervalu must clarify their beef purchasing policy after beef sold in one of their stores was labelled as being from Azerbaijan.

“Supervalu have claimed to IFA that this was a ‘coding error’. However, they applied their own ‘produced in Ireland’ logo to the product, rather than the official Bord Bia Quality Assured (QA) logo,” he said.

Previously Musgraves/Supervalu have stated that all of their fresh beef was Bord Bia Quality Assured. They need to clarify why this produce did not meet the Bord Bia standard.

The IFA President said the ‘produced in Ireland’ logo was misleading and that retailers should not be allowed to use their own likenesses of the Bord Bia QA logo.

“This use of the likenesses of the Bord Bia logo, incorporating our national flag, is wrong. Retailers should only use the Bord Bia logo on meat. This logo is based on clear criteria that the beef must come from a Quality Assured Irish farm and that it is slaughtered in Ireland,” he said.

Mr. Cullinan said that, at a time when Irish farmers are being told by processors that the market for Irish beef has been severely hit due to the Covid19 crisis, retailers and processors need to support Irish farmers and others who are working in the Irish food processing sector.

“This comes on top of the news that the ABP Group filled orders to the UK with Polish beef. This has angered farmers at a time when they working around the clock to keep food on the table for consumers,” he said.