Local butchers under threat as cheap is beating quality

IRELAND’S cuisine and food heritage is under threat from industrial production and multinational retailers.

The claim was made in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, by Pat Brady, director of a European Union supported cross Border craft butchers apprenticeship training certificate project.

Some 25 young people took part in the project, run by Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland (ACBI) and the Northern Ireland Master Butchers Association (NIMBA), with the help of funding from the EU Interreg Programme through the Irish Central Area Partnership.

Mr Brady, who is ACBI chief executive, said the threat is coming from an insatiable necessity for cheap product, packaging, long shelf-life and long-distance transport.

“Irish cuisine, based as it was on the best of good ingredients, didn’t need to have a battery of sauces because the basic product didn’t need to be disguised or smothered.

“In addition, it was local, something that has become important again with our concern about the environment, traceability and rural development,” he said.

Mr Brady said people are increasingly raising the issue as they question what is the real cost of cheap food.

“In this, they are echoing increased and overdue concern about the nutritional consequences of packaged and processed food and the social and environmental damage being inflicted on our communities by large multiple retailers,” he said.

He said butchers remain one of the few retailers on the island who are experts in their craft and their customers’ needs. Their direct interface with customer is recognised as a better and safer way to retail food than relying on long-winded labels.