Iceland made a lot of fuss about selling frozen Red Grouse in their stores some time back (see Red grouse get to Iceland, 10 July and Iceland fail to demonstrate their grasp of the subject, 13 July) thanks to publicity in the Daily Mail (editor Paul Dacre – grouse shooter).
On a recent visit around their stores I found that the grouse meat was being sold off cheap at less than half price. A quick conversation with the staff in a couple of stores confirmed what was blindingly obvious right from the get-go that ‘grice’ might not be the preferred purchase for Iceland’s normal clientele. Their best sellers in the meat department are 4 quarter pounders for £2.
Just as Malcolm Walker did not reply to enquiries from the Raptor Persecution Scotland blog (and what an excellent bunch of bloggers those boys are) he did not reply to me either.
But Iceland did get a mention in the minutes of the Lead Ammunition Group meeting of 13 August suggesting that the information on game on Iceland’s website was not in line with Food Standards Agency guidelines.
Now that the findings of the Lead Ammunition Group are in the public domain (Findings of the Leade Ammunition Group, 8 Sept), we can all see that Iceland have probably been selling Red Grouse meat to the public which include high lead levels.
The Red Grouse was so cheap in Iceland it looked a bargain. Shall we call these purchases ‘samples’ from now on? Watch this space.
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It has taken you a millisecond to change my view about ‘special offers’ and bogofs in supermarkets [at least]!! Well done!
Hi Mark, surely you are going about this the wrong way? Why don’t you just ask Iceland Foods, or any other distributor of game, for the results of their testing? I mean surely they would have done SOME testing before they sell their wholesome, natural and healthy products to the consumer? This is isn’t a new issue is it, FSA have known about it for years, as have the game industry. What do they have to hide?
When you think back to BSE and horse meat scandals it amazes me that more priority hasn’t been given to this by the industry, the regulators and indeed the consumer.
I suddenly feel the urge to write a letter to a certain vegan shadow minister.
(PS – I love game, and would eat it regularly if I could be sure of the provenance and lead free status. Unfortunately when I have asked about lead status, I am usually referred to farmed game – which kinda misses the point!!)
I have tried many times to get a response from Iceland and I am now flooding their facebook pages on the topic.I could do with a few people helping me to keep the pressure on them,until they deem us worthy of an answer.
In a reply to one comment on the Iceland Facebook page the company states that:
”…the Supplier takes all necessary precautions to make sure all lead shot is removed..”
ALL lead shot? Can this be true? Presumably they hand-pick there way through each bird – lovely – and I thought some of the shot is too small to see with the naked eye?
& of the residual material left after butchering a bird in attempts to locate the pellets, ha …. the carcass would look terrible from my observations & experience of ‘sport’ game.
Perhaps a random sample is obtained & independently analysed & results publiscised?