Asda has insisted a recent meat mislabelling incident in one of its Scottish stores does not point to control problems in its supply chain.
The retailer was forced to apologise when sheep farmer Sue Sharp bought a leg of lamb from the Asda meat counter labelled as born, reared and slaughtered in the UK, only to find a New Zealand health stamp on the meat.
NFU Scotland said the mix up was “unacceptable” and called on the retailer to re-issue guidance to all of its suppliers and to Asda stores across the country to prevent any further labelling errors.
Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme this morning, Sharp said the New Zealand health label had been difficult to spot and she was worried the mislabelling was not an isolated incident.
However, an Asda spokeswoman insisted the incident was “isolated” and the result of “human error”. She stressed the lamb had been bought over the counter and had been mislabelled in store rather than during processing.
“This was an isolated incident where a leg of lamb was accidentally mislabelled. We pride ourselves on product traceability and transparency and are committed to sourcing British products first when in season,” she said.
“This was a genuine colleague error for which we apologise and was not meant to mislead any of our customers in any way.”
She added Asda had committed to reviewing practices at the Galashiels store to “make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
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