Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and lead in meat

Mark 5 Comments

Last week Wild Justice published five blog posts about lead in game meat sold by two leading supermarkets, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose.

On Monday: Sainsbury’s game meat – and why we tested its lead levels did just that – it was because Sainsbury’s were misleading and evasive about lead levels in game meat on sale in their stores.

On Wednesday: Lead levels in game meat was an entry-level introduction to lead in game meat, how it gets in there and what people say about it.

On Thursday: Sainsbury’s game meat has high lead levels revealed the results of laboratory tests on Sainsbury’s chickens (essentially lead-free) and the high lead levels in Game Mix and Pheasant breasts.

On Friday: Waitrose game meat still has lead in it – but signs of improvement revealed that lab tests showed that Waitrose had made progress towards its lead-free promise, but still had a long way to go, and then the results of 2800 responses by Wild Justice newsletter subscribers were published in a post called What you think about lead in game meat which told DEFRA, the Food Standards Agency, the shooting industry and retailers what was needed in terms of a response to high lead levels in game meat.

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5 Replies to “Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and lead in meat”

  1. Well done indeed Wild Justice for testing and publishing the results of lead in these so called “game” products. To me it just beggars belief that these supermarket chains are so evasive and obstructive on a subject that can have serious health and wildlife concerns. They all protest they are “green” supporting the environment but the truth is in reality in most cases these are not and are often precisely the opposite. This issue disgraces them and this country.

  2. I mean, I said that compliance would be a problem. Both for the supermarkets and the bad faith actors in the industry who would be willing to lie to them. And I took a lot of flak, even from some of the anti-shooting industry ppl on here and on twitter, but I was right. Stop trusting them.

  3. I agree with Random. I’ll only be believing the results of random tests, not what the supermarkets themselves tell us. They haven’t been exactly swift to address this issue – any more than they are being over plastic packaging, which despite endless greenwash doesn’t seem to have declined at all.

    Even with good faith there are real practical problems – even if sale of lead shot was stopped tomorrow there will be a long tail of old lead cartridges, and no doubt, with attitudes in shooting today, some bloody minded people who go on using it just to snub the ban. Estates that want to pass the test will probably have to insist on guns using their provided cartridges rather than bringing their own as is the present norm.

    1. Coupled with the fact that there is a shooting group called “Save our lead shot!” enough said.

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