MULTIPLE RETAILERS need shocked out of their ‘unbelievably lazy approach to beef’, otherwise customers will soon be unable to buy home-produced cuts, the National Beef Association has warned.

“Supermarkets are held to be hugely efficient, forward thinking, operations, but their cobwebby beef departments have either fallen into a comfortable time warp or they are culpably unaware of the supply problems they are creating for themselves in the near future,” declared the NBA’s new chairman, Oisin Murnion.

Mr Murnion said the multiples were taking an ‘indolent, near suicidal’ approach to beef retailing by flooding their shelves with cheap mince, while more interesting and profitable cuts were pushed into the corners.

“Mince already accounts for half the beef that is taken home for meals and if more of it goes on the shelves, then more beef cattle will be massively devalued and more farmers will give up producing it,” predicted Mr Murnion.

The UK’s beef farmers are currently being paid an average of 265p per carcase kg for cattle that are worth at least 320p, he said, and the fault lay with retailers who undersold the product because they lacked the imagination to add more value to it.

“Beef displays in supermarkets are dismally thin and depressing. If you can see past the mountains of mince, all you will find are token offerings of stewing steak, sirloin roasts, heavily promoted topside and, if you are lucky, some reasonable rump steak or fillet,” said Mr Murnion.

“The contrast between this retail wasteland and the knowledgeable displays constructed by High Street butchers – who are committed to adding as much value as possible to the beef carcase and take a professional pride in the depth, and range, of product on their counters – is nothing short of shocking.

“In these circumstances, the NBA has no qualms in advising consumers who are interested in beef to turn their backs on the multiples and return to enjoying shopping for beef prepared and presented by a skilled butcher instead,” he said.