What happened?
Supermarket chain Waitrose is having to rebrand its lamb ready meals in its “British” range because some are made with lamb from New Zealand.
The problem first emerged last year when it had been noticed that lamb from the ready meals had not been British meat.
To begin with stickers were added to the packages to make it clear as to where the lamb came from, however now all the “British” lamb meals will be rebranded as “Classic”.
A Waitrose spokesperson said: “To ensure the provenance of the lamb in the meals is clearer (it has always been on back of pack) we have [already] stickered all packs on the front,”
“We are about to re-launch the range with the branding “Classic”, removing the large “British” reference from the front of pack.”
“This was only ever supposed to denote the origin of the recipe but we understand why confusion has arisen,”
The National Farmers Union (NFU) were happy about the change.
NFU President Meurig Raymond, said: “We made our concerns very clear to Waitrose right from the beginning on this product,”
“The inclusion of the word “British” in the brand name despite the meat being sourced from New Zealand is misleading for shoppers – and it’s frustrating for British farmers, especially those who produce lamb Waitrose could have sourced.”
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