No horsing around at butchers

GETTING THE MESSAGE ACROSS: Andrew Jenkins with the T-shirts at Mason’s Butchers GETTING THE MESSAGE ACROSS: Andrew Jenkins with the T-shirts at Mason’s Butchers

A BOURNEMOUTH butcher’s shop is hoping to attract some extra customers during the horsemeat scandal with T-shirts advertising their horse-free products.

The scandal, which has seen products labelled as beef in supermarkets shown to contain up to 100 per cent horsemeat, has caused anger among many local traders as well as consumers.

Butcher Andrew Jenkins, of family firm Mason’s Butchers in Pokesdown, said the majority of his customers have expressed their disgust at the deception, so he has hung up the T-shirts to remind other shoppers about their local supplier.

“Most people who come in mention it, and they are shocked at the scale of it but not really surprised,” he said.

“We have a lot of regular customers who come here because they want quality meat without horse in it, or whatever else, I don’t expect it stops there.

“I’m not surprised there was cost-cutting going on – it is the only way meat could be sold so cheaply for these value products.

“My family have owned this shop since 1945, and although a lot of suppliers have disappeared we have kept close to those we can, particularly one based in Bridport. So we can guarantee what we are getting.”

Despite the scandal however, Mr Jenkins said the shop has not yet seen a dramatic increase in customers.

“We might have got a couple of extra customers in as a result of this but nothing dramatic,” he said.

“The problem for high street businesses like us is parking, it is just more convenient to park at supermarkets. And people go there out of habit.

“We are doing alright here because we have specialities and also a loyal customer base, but people will keep buying cheap, value food for convenience.”

Andy Sherriff, from Bourne-mouth Council trading standards, said they haven’t been instructed to carry out any testing of local food, nor have they received any complaints from the public.

“The Food Standards Agency has identified 28 councils to take part in a short-term sampling project to identify horse and pig DNA in the food chain,” he added.

“Bournemouth hasn’t been selected, we have no supermarket headquarters here, and not much in the way of meat packing or processing industries, so for the moment we aren’t required to act.”

To contact the FSA for information call 0845 051 8322.

Comments(19)

MikeFrench says...
2:44pm Tue 19 Feb 13

A brilliant butchers and will see you soon

l'anglais says...
2:53pm Tue 19 Feb 13

Right Mr Butcher, you've got good produce and you've got free publicity.

Now, don't put your prices up because you see an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

It was profit seeking capitalists that created this polemic, just like with the BSC problem 15 years ago.

BournemouthMum says...
2:56pm Tue 19 Feb 13

Meat is meat - animal carcass. It makes no difference what it is, type of animal, method of slaughter used etc. etc. It's all dead animal - disgusting. I'm glad to have given it up years ago and I expect there will be a lot of new vegetarians now that this has been given so much media attention.

Molecatcher says...
3:09pm Tue 19 Feb 13

BournemouthMum wrote:
Meat is meat - animal carcass. It makes no difference what it is, type of animal, method of slaughter used etc. etc. It's all dead animal - disgusting. I'm glad to have given it up years ago and I expect there will be a lot of new vegetarians now that this has been given so much media attention.
So, you just eat a lot of pesticides... Well done.

Horridbloke says...
3:29pm Tue 19 Feb 13

BournemouthMum wrote:
Meat is meat - animal carcass. It makes no difference what it is, type of animal, method of slaughter used etc. etc. It's all dead animal - disgusting. I'm glad to have given it up years ago and I expect there will be a lot of new vegetarians now that this has been given so much media attention.
No way, meat's delicious.

contric says...
3:37pm Tue 19 Feb 13

i in all the years of getting my meat from masons have never had anything but top quality tender meat if god meant us to be vegetarians cows and pigs would be made of wood

BournemouthMum says...
4:07pm Tue 19 Feb 13

Horridbloke wrote:
BournemouthMum wrote:
Meat is meat - animal carcass. It makes no difference what it is, type of animal, method of slaughter used etc. etc. It's all dead animal - disgusting. I'm glad to have given it up years ago and I expect there will be a lot of new vegetarians now that this has been given so much media attention.
No way, meat's delicious.
It is, and that's why it took me a long time to adjust and if I'm honest I still miss meat - lamb having been my favourite. But that's because we have grown up with meat and have acquired the taste.

When you think about the whole revolting process, the way animals are treated and what goes into farming and slaughter it does make most people think twice. The problem is that most people prefer to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the juicy steak on their plate 'just got there'.

There are plenty of videos online for anyone who REALLY wants to see how it's done. But most won't watch them preferring to stay ignorant 'because it tastes good'.

O'Reilly says...
4:19pm Tue 19 Feb 13

Thoroughly recommend this shop great selection and not too expensive for proper meat.

Kieran S says...
9:38pm Tue 19 Feb 13

BournemouthMum wrote:
Meat is meat - animal carcass. It makes no difference what it is, type of animal, method of slaughter used etc. etc. It's all dead animal - disgusting. I'm glad to have given it up years ago and I expect there will be a lot of new vegetarians now that this has been given so much media attention.
At least I don't eat uniquorn! On a more serious note, take pigs, used for ham and bacon so on, very few are kept as pets. Its the humans that feed them, so if we all turned vegetarian there would be no need for pigs and they would slowly die out. Therefore meaning it is vegetarians that are bringing forth the demise of the piggy population.

As for the echo...
Guys, your jokes aren't funny! Could you reign them in please. Also you haven't covered the story about the lady who went into hospital with a horse-meat related issue, don't worry, her condition is said to be stable!!!

Bob49 says...
9:58pm Tue 19 Feb 13

horse related issue ?

must have been an odd looking child

fletch for manager says...
10:38pm Tue 19 Feb 13

Nice bit of free advertising

Dr Strangelove says...
10:42pm Tue 19 Feb 13

Bad bad story. This is not balanced and clearly free advertising for this butcher. Please do a series over a week maybe about local butchers and their history so some of the others get some press. Why this chap ???

billd766 says...
1:33am Wed 20 Feb 13

Dr Strangelove wrote:
Bad bad story. This is not balanced and clearly free advertising for this butcher. Please do a series over a week maybe about local butchers and their history so some of the others get some press. Why this chap ???
How many real independent butchers are there in the town?
Part of the problem is that people want everything as cheap as possible, which is fine and dandy, but they also want the highest quality for that price.
Compare a Mini with a Rolls Royce, they both do the same job but the quality is reflected in the price.

EGHH says...
6:43am Wed 20 Feb 13

Historically we don't eat horse as they were used by farmers for ploughing etc. Whereas on the continent they used cattle for same purpose. So horses were used for meat.

Molecatcher says...
8:34am Wed 20 Feb 13

O'Reilly wrote:
Thoroughly recommend this shop great selection and not too expensive for proper meat.
Other independent butchers are available. Keatings in Wimborne is excellent...

The Liberal says...
9:18am Wed 20 Feb 13

Molecatcher wrote:
O'Reilly wrote:
Thoroughly recommend this shop great selection and not too expensive for proper meat.
Other independent butchers are available. Keatings in Wimborne is excellent...
Yep, all Keatings' beef comes from Kingston Lacy too.

burgerboy says...
10:30am Wed 20 Feb 13

BournemouthMum wrote:
Meat is meat - animal carcass. It makes no difference what it is, type of animal, method of slaughter used etc. etc. It's all dead animal - disgusting. I'm glad to have given it up years ago and I expect there will be a lot of new vegetarians now that this has been given so much media attention.
All i can say to bournemouthmum is you can't beat a large portion of fresh black pudding, supplied by your very friendly local butcher,try it (;o).

kingstonpaul says...
1:11pm Wed 20 Feb 13

As John Cleese put it, "if God wanted us to be vegetarian, he wouldn't have made animals out of meat"

starchef01 says...
2:44pm Wed 20 Feb 13

BournemouthMum wrote:
Horridbloke wrote:
BournemouthMum wrote:
Meat is meat - animal carcass. It makes no difference what it is, type of animal, method of slaughter used etc. etc. It's all dead animal - disgusting. I'm glad to have given it up years ago and I expect there will be a lot of new vegetarians now that this has been given so much media attention.
No way, meat's delicious.
It is, and that's why it took me a long time to adjust and if I'm honest I still miss meat - lamb having been my favourite. But that's because we have grown up with meat and have acquired the taste.

When you think about the whole revolting process, the way animals are treated and what goes into farming and slaughter it does make most people think twice. The problem is that most people prefer to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the juicy steak on their plate 'just got there'.

There are plenty of videos online for anyone who REALLY wants to see how it's done. But most won't watch them preferring to stay ignorant 'because it tastes good'.
I like they way you are happy to put "its dead animal meat" "disgusting", then say you miss it, just a typical hypocritical vegetarian, i bet you still eat/drink dairy products, even thought they come from the same source as our meat, they may be alive at the time but its still from an animal, i bet you would still eat parmesan cheese even thought that is actually not 100% vegetarian!

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