Opinion

As the beef crisis continues, the magic phrase "action to restore consumer confidence" has become the cliche of the moment. The apparent good news was supermarket decisions to halve the price of beef, which cleared the shelves. Unfortunately most of the purchases were made by a relative minority who would have bought beef anyway, and who recognise the bargain of the year. And they won't have to buy beef at the full price for a long time as much of it went into deep freezers. But more importantly, what is the restocking policy of the stores who sold out? And what will be the subsequent rate of sale? British farmers will have to accept their product will never be able to force its way back to prominence while so many companies are forced to pander to "better safe than sorry" demands. Somerfield has led the "getting on the right side of the shopper" policy while advocating the creation of a kitemark for selected beef, a suggestion made first in The Grocer on March 23. The guarantees include labelled meat from BSE-free herds, and rigorous enforcement of all abattoir regulations. But what of the rest? The processors who use cattle products will find comparisons odious, as will other beef growers. Former EU importers might accept BSE-free guarantees on selected steers, but what are these guarantees worth? The sensational reports that there is a test that will prove an animal has BSE, before symptoms are displayed, are wrong. In a suspicious world of supposition, this difficulty will not help our exporters facing widely held unscientific decisions by importers and foreign shoppers. And Community politicians are being driven by their assessment of customers' views, just like MacDonalds and others. Hence their decision not to lift the ban. Unfortunately, that foolish, original statement linking BSE with CJD as "the most likely explanation" will haunt the industry and this Government for many years. Can the Europeans be blamed for reading and hearing it? Not often do scientists come to such unscientific conclusions.