Tesco 'extremely disappointed' as Dutch pork chops labelled as British
Britain's largest supermarket chain, Tesco has said that it is ‘extremely disappointed’ that pork chops labelled as British were discovered to actually come from Holland.
The own brand pork chops, which included a British flag on the label, was purchased by the BBC as part of an investigation for the Farming Today and You & Yours programmes, from a store in Salford.
The packaging included the red tractor emblem that identifies British food, however when tested, the samples sent a laboratory in Germany found that there was less than a one per cent chance that they originated from the UK.
In reaction, a statement from Tesco read: “We are extremely disappointed to discover a pork loin product probably came from a Dutch farm, not a British farm.
"When we specify that we want British pork, we expect to be supplied with British pork. We have spoken with our supplier to make clear that this mistake is unacceptable.
"We've recently trialled this new isotope testing and we are talking to BPEX about how we can develop this alongside our existing tests, to bring even more rigour to our food testing programme."
The supplier, family owned FA Gill, also released a denial: “FA Gill can categorically deny that the pork came from their supply as they do not deal with Dutch meat.
"We correctly label the products we sell to our customers and we have the documentation to prove this."
The discovery will raise further questions of supermarkets and how much they know about the produce they sell following the horse meat scandal earlier this year.