Tesco has no plans to source American beef

Trade deal gives US farmers a quota of 13,000 metric tonnes for beef

Tesco CEO Ken Murphy said they source 100% Irish and British beef with no plans to change.

Tesco said it has no plans to source American beef despite last week's US-UK trade deal giving the product access to the UK market.

The deal gave US farmers a quota of 13,000 metric tonnes for beef which meets UK standards, with UK farmers having the same quota for sales into the United States.

"We source 100% Irish and British beef in Tesco and for the foreseeable future that policy will be the same, we're not planning to change it," Tesco CEO Ken Murphy told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Retail Congress.

As market leader, Tesco has a 28% share of Britain's grocery market and 23% of the Irish market.

Number two player in the UK Sainsbury's, which has 15% of the market, similarly sources all of its beef from Britain and Ireland.

Last week, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins hailed American beef as "the safest, the best quality and the crown jewel of American agriculture" and predicted the trade deal would "exponentially increase" US beef exports to Britain.

However, with little difference between prices of British-produced beef and US beef that does meet UK standards, the US product could struggle to find a UK market.

Reuters