Beef Ban Lifted: Why beef will still be an acquired taste in Europe

AFTER the BSE scare, beef for many Germans became for ever tainted, whatever its origin. Germany has taken a harder line on British beef than its European neighbours. It was the only country to vote against ending the ban at yesterday's meeting of European Union farm ministers.

In the wake of the British government's announcement that BSE could be passed on to humans, Union flags were burnt and sales of all kinds of meat - whether British or German - plummeted.

Yesterday, Helga Kuhn, of the German Association of Consumer Organisations (AGV) predicted a repeat of those scenes: "German consumers will be worried and there will be a decrease in meat consumption, perhaps in the same dimension as in 1996, when it was very severe."

Not everyone was so pessimistic. At McDonald's on the Ku'damm, Berlin's biggest shopping street, customers were unperturbed by yesterday's development. "I think the whole thing is exaggerated," said Hans-Peter Kahland, biting into his Big Mac.

Manuela Durr-Netzig, 28, was also unconcerned. "I lived in London for a year, ate lots of beef, and nothing happened to me."

The experience of farmers in Northern Ireland should stand as a warning to their English and Scottish counterparts. The ban on Northern Ireland beef was lifted in June but it took until September for the first sales contract to be concluded. Now only 20 to 30 tonnes of beef is being exported each week, only about 2 per cent of the 1,000 tonnes a week which used to be exported before the crisis.

Phelim O' Neill, of the Northern Ireland Livestock and Meat Commission, said lucrative contracts in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy had been lost.

In Brussels, where agriculture ministers voted, UK officials were walking around with "Great Beef" stickers on their lapels. But the British BSE scare has seriously dented confidence in all beef and red meat, whatever its provenance.

Pierre Van Der Eycken, 30, a photographer said he would not choose British beef if something else was available. "The image is tarnished." Rome restauraters were even more cautious. "It may be legal to sell it again, but there is still a sort of repulsion towards British beef. I don't sell it and I think there will be an attitude problem for another year at least" said Giorgio Cialone, of Trattoria San Teodoro.

In France, butchers said they thought the ban had been lifted prematurely. "It will cause problems especially with old people, who are still very suspicious of all beef," said one butcher in the Rue Faubourg St Honore in Paris, who said his beef sales had only just returned to normal. "I used to sell British beef but I will keep to French meat, from sources I know, from now on. If I have British beef in the shop, people will stop buying my other beef."