Cooks complain about foreign food

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School cooks in north Wales have complained about being forced into serving up foreign meat to pupils.

Anglesey council has received complaints from 11 primary schools whose kitchens are unhappy at being supplied with Belgian beef.

They said suppliers Eden Foodservice said they would provide only UK-sourced meat to local schools.

The company said that occasionally it had to source food from outside the UK due to market and supply conditions.

The cooks complained to their education authority via the headteachers at their schools.

They were told in a meeting with Eden Foodservice prior to the start of term that only Welsh lamb and Scottish beef would be supplied.

As a result, they were unhappy at the delivery of the beef from Belgium which clearly stated that it had been sourced, slaughtered and cut in that country. I'm not happy with the quality of this Belgian meat Cook Denise Owen

However, it also stated that it was converted into mince in the UK.

Bodedern Primary School in Holyhead was one of the 11 schools to complain about the meat they received from Eden.

Cook Denise Owen said: "We had a meeting with the representatives of Eden Foodservice and they said that we would be having our beef from Scotland and Welsh lamb.

"But I have mince in the freezer that says it comes from Belgium but was minced in the UK.

"This is the second time that this has happened. I've also heard from another cook that she has had meat from Portugal.

"The quality of the mince is not bad but out of the 10lb (4.5kg) of minced beef I had, 3lb (1.4kg) was fat.

"I'm keeping it in the freezer so they can see it when they come over but nobody has been in touch.

"The meat I had before was of a good quality and I'm not happy with the quality of this Belgian meat."

'Very disappointed'

The Anglesey branch representative of the Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW), Dafydd Roberts, said it was also unsure about the quality of the imported meat compared to local produce.

"I'm very disappointed if Anglesey county council is bringing in meat like this," he said.

"From what we understood they were going to use local meat and produce.

"It's cheaper to import meat from Belgium but we don't know if it's the same quality.

"The union has raised the issue with the council. I understand it was a mistake the first time but this has happened in more than one place and we are very disappointed."

In a statement Eden Foodservice said it had a policy of purchasing, wherever possible, meat from UK or Ireland and most would would carry the red tractor Assured Food Standards logo showing it had come from British farms

However, said the company, there are instances when volatile market conditions, supply chains and market volumes mean a proportion of required volumes have to be occasionally sourced from outside of the UK.

Anglesey County Council said no-one was available to comment.