beef

Riverside Evesham looks to boost supplier confidence Ready meals buoy up trade Surprising stability is developing in parts of the forequarter beef trade, among the best evidence so far being the keenness of executives at M&S ready meal supplier Riverside Evesham, a Northern Foods subsidiary, to talk in public of their raw material sourcing deal with manufacturing meat processor Yorkshire Premier and its sister company Scotch Premier. Even the directors of YP and SP were unprepared for all the candid disclosures of tonnages and contract values when Riverside Evesham md Andy Walker met the press at Inverurie on Monday. Presumably Walker's objective was to consolidate an unexpectedly successful trading relationship by boosting the confidence of his ultimate suppliers ­ the livestock farmers who both provide the cattle and own the processing companies through their co-operative ANM Group. Walker and ANM chief executive Brian Pack mingled with producers at the co-op's three day Christmas Classic livestock and carcase show and told them the forequarter trade for M&S had turned into an annual 2,000 tonne enterprise worth more than £9m. "We knew traceability was the passport ­ it gave M&S confidence," said Walker, explaining why the fores were sourced from Scotland rather than the more predictable Botswana or Uruguay. "The fastest growing demand for beef is in ready meals," as Pack pointed out. Co-ordination between ANM, Riverside and M&S had already yielded volume and price predictability contrasting with the forequarter trade's image of volatility. "Ironically, we could probably do a producer contract now for the forequarter," said Pack, "but we wouldn't know how to cover the risk on the hinds." {{MEAT }}