I guess many readers of this blog will remember that Waitrose announced in July that by next game season it would be getting its game meat from sources that would guarantee that it will be lead-free. This is excellent news, puts Waitrose at the leading edge of supermarkets on this subject, and is very much to be welcomed. This game season is essentially a ‘sorting everything out’ season and so you cannot rely on Waitrose game meat to be lead-free yet.
However, you can rely on Waitrose game meat to have this new, accurate and sensible health warning (as seen in Rushden Waitrose this afternoon).
This has replaced the old, worse and inaccurate health warning that Waitrose were using last year. The image below was taken in November last year and I think it was probably the stink that this health warning created that made Waitrose change to lead-free through this transition year.
Now, given that these health warnings are on the bottom of the pack and crowded by a whole load of other dull information, they aren’t exactly very obvious it is excellent that we do not have to rely on them but we will be able to rely on Waitrose being lead-free next year.
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The risk should have the level of prominence on the packaging that Smoking Kills has on today’s cigarette packets
Hats off to you Mark for leading on this campaign. Well done.
Subject to auditing regimes, of course. I could easily see their suppliers just claiming to be leadfree and spitefully and deliberately using lead shot. That is just the rep that the shooting industry has earned.
Then Waitrose would be prosecuted under the Consumer Protection Regs or Food safety Act for making false claims that mislead and endanger consumers…
Hence the need for them to aggressively audit their suppliers. You’ll note I did not say Waitrose would be flouting the law; I pointed out their suppliers from the shooting industry, famed for spiteful law flouting, might choose to do so out of spite. Until we know how strong Waitrose’s auditing of their suppliers is, and that can only really be known by analysing the birds sold, we cannot rely on them because they themselves are dealing with the unreliable.
As it would be Waitrose selling the product and thereby having the contract with consumers, which their labelling would play a part of, it is them who would be ‘flouting the law’ as you put it.
They would of course have a contract with suppliers which is how they would then pursue onward damages (and as you say, would be wise to have a good oversight of!).
They might be breaking the law, but they wouldn’t be flouting it. Flouting it means going that extra mile beyond breaking it.