Do we care about imported food in our restaurants?

My bus journeys into work have been brightened since I discovered The Archers podcast (Get ready for the ructions when Brian reveals what happening to Adam and Debbies’s inheritance) and best of all, the Farming Today podcast means that you don’t have to get up at stupid-o-clock anymore to keep up to date with the latest rural news. This morning I caught up on Saturday’s show which was about the tricky subject of imported beef.

A quarter of the beef we eat is imported. Half of that number comes from Ireland but we also import from places like Botswana, Namibia and the United States. The EU has just slapped a temporary ban on Brazilian beef. Due to the way herds are farmed in Brazil, its impossible to trace individual cuts of beef back to a specific farm unlike European cows which are ear-tagged from birth. The worry is that Brazil has a massive Foot and Mouth problem although some say that the ban has more to do with the European beef industry protecting their markets.

Most members of the public interviewed on the programme said that they wanted to know where their beef came from, but the show revealed that the majority of this imported meat doesn’t end up in our supermarket-bought slabs of topside. Instead its journey leads it to our restaurants and fast food establishments. It makes sense really, as imported meat is generally cheaper than our home cuts. There was even a suggestion that when some restaurants claim their meat is locally sourced, they actually mean it comes from a local wholesaler. However, the meat itself may still hail from Africa or the Americas. Hardly local produce then.

This got me thinking; food miles and animal welfare seem to be high on everyone’s list of priorities at the moment, but do these principles end as soon as you walk through the door of a restaurant? Have you ever asked where the produce served up in your local eatery comes from? Do you think that restaurateurs will soon come under pressure to reveal the provenance of their grub?