Lidl quizzed by MPs over ‘Strathvale farm’ Scottish chicken
Lidl GB’s chief commercial officer Richard Bourns had told MPs: ‘We do not use farm brands, just to be absolutely clear.’
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Your support makes all the difference.Lidl has claimed to MPs that a picture of its “Strathvale farm chicken” is a “mistake” after telling them the discounter does not use so-called fake farms.
Appearing in front of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on fairness in the food supply chain, Lidl GB’s chief commercial officer Richard Bourns was questioned on the fairness of supermarkets using fake farms to market their food.
Mr Bourns, who was specifically questioned by committee member Rosie Duffield on using “Strathvale farm” branding for meat products, replied: “We don’t use Strathvale farms, we use Strathvale.
Oh wait a minute, we have here a Strathvale farm Scottish large chicken, for £3.85... So there is on the website at least, a reference to Strathvale farm
“We do not use farm brands, just to be absolutely clear.”
Committee chairman Robert Goodwill, who had access to the internet, said: “Oh wait a minute, we have here a Strathvale farm Scottish large chicken, for £3.85. Gosh that’s cheap.
“So there is on the website at least, a reference to Strathvale farm.”
Mr Bourns replied: “If there is a reference to Strathvale farms on our website I’d want to take that away and correct it.
“It could be the case that our website is not up to date.
We do not have an online offering but I can categorically tell you we do not have farms brands in our business, just to be absolutely clear
“We do not have an online offering but I can categorically tell you we do not have farms brands in our business, just to be absolutely clear.
“So we have Strathvale for Scottish meat in Scotland, we have Birchwood for British meat in the UK, but we do not have Strathvale farms and we do not have Birchwood farms.”
Mr Goodwill replied: “It actually has on this picture, on the chicken packaging itself as well, there’s a picture of a farm, the word ‘Strathvale’ and then ‘farm’ written underneath it – quite small to be fair – but it certainly is a ‘Strathvale farm Scottish large chicken’.”
Mr Bourns said: “Just to be clear, we don’t sell Scottish chicken. We only sell British chicken, so that’s a point that we need to update the website on.”
Ms Duffield earlier asked Dom Morrey, commercial director for fresh food at Tesco, if it was clear to consumers that the supermarket used invented farms, listing “Rosedene, Suntrail farms, Redmere farms, Nightingale farms, Willow farms, Woodside farms, Boswell farms and Bay fishmongers”, which she described as “all completely fake”.
Mr Morrey said: “When we previously sold those as value items, our customers fed it back to us that they didn’t necessarily like the way that that was done.
“And so we tried to bring it to life in terms of being more redolent of the supply base where it comes from.
“To reiterate it comes from the same growers and farmers and the same producers and standards as we have now.”
Following the committee hearing a Lidl spokesperson said: “Any historic web pages featuring old packaging that appear via a search engine are in the process of being removed to ensure complete accuracy.”