So, the horse for beef scandal continues to grow apace as more and more questions are asked about how and where our food is sourced. Our national supermarkets, in their continuing quest for ever greater profits, have done everything they can to ensure that they dominate the market. Their avaricious buyers have long screwed suppliers into the ground and decent, hard-working farmers up and down the country have been driven to the wall because they cannot sell at the prices demanded by the supermarket giants.

Those buyers have searched home and abroad for even cheaper sources and in their eagerness and greed appear to have either ignored or failed to take into account the quality of the foods they have been buying. The news that supermarkets have been dealing with sellers even more unscrupulous than themselves and have been buying horse (and goodness knows what else) instead of beef should come as a surprise to no one.

However, they say it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good and the dreadful publicity for the big chains has evidently resulted in a huge upturn in business for local high street butchers. Good, how satisfying it is to see the underdog prosper for a change.

Turning now to the consumer, can anybody purchasing a ready-made Lasagne meal for two for £1.50 really be surprised that the meat is dodgy? What did they expect, fillet steak? You get what you pay for and, to quote another wise saying, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys…………. Oh dear, I hope I haven’t just written the next news headline. Chimp and ale pie anybody?

In all seriousness though, I have a feeling that there are quite a few more nasty surprises in store before this sorry tale dies a death.