BREXIT - Is This Really Still Rumbling On? 😴
Comments
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In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.0 -
You would be amazed atthe subsidiesmorstar said:In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.
I know a farmer in Shropshire who replaced kms of hedges and made tens of thousands of ££££. He could get it down cheaper than the grant he was paid.0 -
Don't they get eaten by slugs first?surrey_commuter said:
yes I do.rjsterry said:
If you count polytunnels and cold storage as 'playing with nature'surrey_commuter said:
If you grow your own you know fruit and veg tastes better the shorter the time between picking and eating. You would also know that it goes off in days whereas a similar product from a supermarket will last weeks.rick_chasey said:Come on. I’m all ears. The food and produce across southern Europe is just infinitely nicer, right?
Regardless of the price bracket.
Now if that is purely down to the market structure you’ll have to break that down beyond “supermarkets are bad”.
I suspect that in parts of other countries they are buying daily from a market whereas in this country they are playing with nature to get the longevity.
Try growing a lettuce and then pick it. I promise you that Liz Truss would last longer0 -
surrey_commuter said:
You would be amazed atthe subsidiesmorstar said:In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.
I know a farmer in Shropshire who replaced kms of hedges and made tens of thousands of ££££. He could get it down cheaper than the grant he was paid.
Depending on the type of land, he might have been better off ripping them all out to make the farming bit easier and more profitable.0 -
I was once asked by a farmer whether it was worth borrowing x at y% to build a barn for cattle in the winter. I asked about the incremental impact on the revenues and costs of the barn. This was something the farmer found hard to quantify. He did, nonetheless, appreciate the answer and the required science to make the decision. I'm not sure most farm spending usually goes through the same due diligence.morstar said:In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.0 -
I suspect often it's done on the same basis as house improvements... not as a monetary decision "Will this make me money?", but as something that 'will be useful', and "Can I afford this?"TheBigBean said:
I was once asked by a farmer whether it was worth borrowing x at y% to build a barn for cattle in the winter. I asked about the incremental impact on the revenues and costs of the barn. This was something the farmer found hard to quantify. He did, nonetheless, appreciate the answer and the required science to make the decision. I'm not sure most farm spending usually goes through the same due diligence.morstar said:In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.0 -
sheep.briantrumpet said:surrey_commuter said:
You would be amazed atthe subsidiesmorstar said:In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.
I know a farmer in Shropshire who replaced kms of hedges and made tens of thousands of ££££. He could get it down cheaper than the grant he was paid.
Depending on the type of land, he might have been better off ripping them all out to make the farming bit easier and more profitable.
He is a very smart cookie and certainly did not need my advice on what he should be doing with his thousand acres.
Plus the things he did made no sense on the surface so there must have been a lot of moving parts.
A chicken grower used to lend him the money (hundreds of thousands) to build giant sheds then every 3 months or so would sell him 25,000 very young chicks that he would fatten up for 3 months and then sell on. From the profit he would pay back the shed money. The whole thing was computer cotrolled from Holland so he did it with his wife.0 -
So not arable then. I'm not sure what you are objecting to. The government are paying him to create hedges: of course he's going to try to do it for less than the grant he receives. That's how businesses are supposed to work. The hedges aren't directly for his benefit at all.surrey_commuter said:
sheep.briantrumpet said:surrey_commuter said:
You would be amazed atthe subsidiesmorstar said:In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.
I know a farmer in Shropshire who replaced kms of hedges and made tens of thousands of ££££. He could get it down cheaper than the grant he was paid.
Depending on the type of land, he might have been better off ripping them all out to make the farming bit easier and more profitable.
He is a very smart cookie and certainly did not need my advice on what he should be doing with his thousand acres.
Plus the things he did made no sense on the surface so there must have been a lot of moving parts.
A chicken grower used to lend him the money (hundreds of thousands) to build giant sheds then every 3 months or so would sell him 25,000 very young chicks that he would fatten up for 3 months and then sell on. From the profit he would pay back the shed money. The whole thing was computer cotrolled from Holland so he did it with his wife.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
the hedges had already been there for hundrds of years. Somebody paid him x3 what he paid somebody to do the work.rjsterry said:
So not arable then. I'm not sure what you are objecting to. The government are paying him to create hedges: of course he's going to try to do it for less than the grant he receives. That's how businesses are supposed to work. The hedges aren't directly for his benefit at all.surrey_commuter said:
sheep.briantrumpet said:surrey_commuter said:
You would be amazed atthe subsidiesmorstar said:In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.
I know a farmer in Shropshire who replaced kms of hedges and made tens of thousands of ££££. He could get it down cheaper than the grant he was paid.
Depending on the type of land, he might have been better off ripping them all out to make the farming bit easier and more profitable.
He is a very smart cookie and certainly did not need my advice on what he should be doing with his thousand acres.
Plus the things he did made no sense on the surface so there must have been a lot of moving parts.
A chicken grower used to lend him the money (hundreds of thousands) to build giant sheds then every 3 months or so would sell him 25,000 very young chicks that he would fatten up for 3 months and then sell on. From the profit he would pay back the shed money. The whole thing was computer cotrolled from Holland so he did it with his wife.0 -
That's sailing quite close to fraud, no? Although grains of sand compared with the money wasted on Covid loans and contracts. Total cost of all farming subsidies seems to be between £1.5bn and £3bnsurrey_commuter said:
the hedges had already been there for hundrds of years. Somebody paid him x3 what he paid somebody to do the work.rjsterry said:
So not arable then. I'm not sure what you are objecting to. The government are paying him to create hedges: of course he's going to try to do it for less than the grant he receives. That's how businesses are supposed to work. The hedges aren't directly for his benefit at all.surrey_commuter said:
sheep.briantrumpet said:surrey_commuter said:
You would be amazed atthe subsidiesmorstar said:In all fairness to British farmers, the economics baffle me.
A modest sized field at the bottom of our road has recently replaced sheep with cows. Between the fencing, large cow shed and track surfacing undertaken, there has to be in the region of £100k - £200k capital investment. There are approx 40 head of cattle. Where on earth is the ROI if people who want premium quality aren’t prepared to pay for it.
I know a farmer in Shropshire who replaced kms of hedges and made tens of thousands of ££££. He could get it down cheaper than the grant he was paid.
Depending on the type of land, he might have been better off ripping them all out to make the farming bit easier and more profitable.
He is a very smart cookie and certainly did not need my advice on what he should be doing with his thousand acres.
Plus the things he did made no sense on the surface so there must have been a lot of moving parts.
A chicken grower used to lend him the money (hundreds of thousands) to build giant sheds then every 3 months or so would sell him 25,000 very young chicks that he would fatten up for 3 months and then sell on. From the profit he would pay back the shed money. The whole thing was computer cotrolled from Holland so he did it with his wife.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Presumably it's either outright fraud, not the whole story, a poor use of subsidies, a farmer winding SC up, or a mixture of all the above ...
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Right
It is very rarely that I get to post on Bikeradar from a point of authority but, in the case of beef I have some degree of that having worked in a technical position within the industry for 20 years (albeit a while ago).
Ricks assertion that beef on the continent "is better quality" is as questionable as it is subjective (I think most people have seen that).
If you're eating a steak in a restaurant in (insert country) it has been prepared and cooked by a professional chef. If you are eating supermarket beef in the UK, you have bought it and cooked it yourself - that is one massive difference!
Regardless of where the beef came from in the first place, I would recommend the following before cooking your next steak:
1) Know the difference between "steaks". If you're buying rump steak in UK and eating Rib Eye in the European country of choice there will be a huge difference - it's simply not comparing like with like (and forget "frying steak" if you're looking for any kind of quality). There are a multitude of types of steak and they are all different.
2) ) Cook for the right amount of time (don't even entertain medium or anything North of it)
3) Bring up to room temperature before cooking
4) Rest in a warm place for 15 minutes before serving
Secondly. A lot (not all, but a lot) of meat sold on the continent is from ex dairy cows as opposed to the beef cattle which is what most butchers and supermarkets sell over here. This makes a huge difference to the cost of the animal being bought for slaughter as it has already been profitable throughout it's milking history. The company I worked for exported thousands of hindquarters to Europe a week pre-BSE. This has an effect on the flavour and indeed the texture of the beef meaning that it typically aged much longer, again affecting the quality.
Although there is a degree of subjectivity about it, in my opinion, the very best beef to buy would be british beef from a recognised beef breed (Aberdeen Angus is the revered one but there are others) that falls outside of the supermarket buying range in terms of fat and conformation (should be well marbled) and that has been well aged (35 days plus from slaughter) . . . and always rib-eye steak.
Wilier Izoard XP7 -
OKlaurentian said:Right
It is very rarely that I get to post on Bikeradar from a point of authority but, in the case of beef I have some degree of that having worked in a technical position within the industry for 20 years (albeit a while ago).
Ricks assertion that beef on the continent "is better quality" is as questionable as it is subjective (I think most people have seen that).
If you're eating a steak in a restaurant in (insert country) it has been prepared and cooked by a professional chef. If you are eating supermarket beef in the UK, you have bought it and cooked it yourself - that is one massive difference!
Regardless of where the beef came from in the first place, I would recommend the following before cooking your next steak:
1) Know the difference between "steaks". If you're buying rump steak in UK and eating Rib Eye in the European country of choice there will be a huge difference - it's simply not comparing like with like (and forget "frying steak" if you're looking for any kind of quality). There are a multitude of types of steak and they are all different.
2) ) Cook for the right amount of time (don't even entertain medium or anything North of it)
3) Bring up to room temperature before cooking
4) Rest in a warm place for 15 minutes before serving
Secondly. A lot (not all, but a lot) of meat sold on the continent is from ex dairy cows as opposed to the beef cattle which is what most butchers and supermarkets sell over here. This makes a huge difference to the cost of the animal being bought for slaughter as it has already been profitable throughout it's milking history. The company I worked for exported thousands of hindquarters to Europe a week pre-BSE. This has an effect on the flavour and indeed the texture of the beef meaning that it typically aged much longer, again affecting the quality.
Although there is a degree of subjectivity about it, in my opinion, the very best beef to buy would be british beef from a recognised beef breed (Aberdeen Angus is the revered one but there are others) that falls outside of the supermarket buying range in terms of fat and conformation (should be well marbled) and that has been well aged (35 days plus from slaughter) . . . and always rib-eye steak.
1) I am cooking the food myself.
2) I know how to cook a steak and i know the difference between cuts. Hell, I practically guide my foreign clients through the Hawksmoore menu as they don't recognise half the cuts.
3) obviously expensive angus steak is going to be good. No sh!t Sherlock. I clearly can't make my point very well, as I'm not talking about high end stuff, but literally the other end of the spectrum > the meat people actually eat by-and-large. If you want to pay for it you can get as good as anything you'll get anywhere in the world in the UK.
Getting luxury consumables is not a problem in the UK and never will be.
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The Aberdeen Angus ribeyes I buy from a butcher are £3-£4 dearer than the closest Tesco alternative per kilo. I specify a smaller, thicker cut. Money well spent.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
"the baseline quality for supermarket stuff is lower in x than y"
"you need to buy more expensive stuff"
ok but that's not the point lads. Come on.0 -
Food in general is cheaper in southern Europe than the UK.
There you go.
Happy now?
There is no 'baseline'. All supermarkets have their own different standards that they impose on suppliers. Sainsbury's is not the same as Tesco's is not the same as M&S.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I’m lost now, what is the point?rick_chasey said:"the baseline quality for supermarket stuff is lower in x than y"
"you need to buy more expensive stuff"
ok but that's not the point lads. Come on.
You want butcher top quality at budget supermarket price?
Dream on.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
If this carries on I'll have to start a food & farming thread...1
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I cant say that i've noticed a great difference in supermarket meat quality in france/uk/spain. Perhaps I'm very undiscerning.
I just searched for sirloin steak in Super u (the last foreign supermarket that recall buying meat from) and the price per kilo is almost exactly the same price as Tesco finest sirloin (a few quid more expensive than standard tesco sirloin.
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I'm sure you will remind everyone how bad Brexit is soon.briantrumpet said:If this carries on I'll have to start a food & farming thread...
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TheBigBean said:
I'm sure you will remind everyone how bad Brexit is soon.briantrumpet said:If this carries on I'll have to start a food & farming thread...
Yeah, I don't want to draw away from the main attraction here and dilute the argument.0 -
You keep changing your point though.rick_chasey said:"the baseline quality for supermarket stuff is lower in x than y"
"you need to buy more expensive stuff"
ok but that's not the point lads. Come on.0 -
I’m probably not explaining myself very well tbh.Pross said:
You keep changing your point though.rick_chasey said:"the baseline quality for supermarket stuff is lower in x than y"
"you need to buy more expensive stuff"
ok but that's not the point lads. Come on.0 -
Your original point was that to get European supermarket quality you have to pay significantly more in the UK. You’ve mentioned €50 per kilo for Aberdeen Angus and £30 for a chicken, others on here have queried your prices.rick_chasey said:
I’m probably not explaining myself very well tbh.Pross said:
You keep changing your point though.rick_chasey said:"the baseline quality for supermarket stuff is lower in x than y"
"you need to buy more expensive stuff"
ok but that's not the point lads. Come on.
My experience of European supermarkets is very limited (a few in France and a small one in Venice) but I find their produce expensive. I was genuinely surprised at how pricey a lot of fruit and veg was when I’ve been camping in France. Some very local stuff is cheap but a lot is significantly more expensive than in the UK and comparable with specialist high quality grocers or greengrocers in the UK.
Basically our supermarket stuff is inferior but cheaper but like for like quality is a similar price.1 -
EU car makers are unhappy that the EU has not accepted the UK's sensible proposal to delay EV car tariffs.
https://archive.is/k7uR5“Money is being spent to support electrification and the building of a European supply chain is accelerating. But it needs time. We have all been too optimistic,” Sigrid de Vries, director-general of Acea, told the Financial Times. “We are not asking to change the TCA . . . we just need more time.”
She said the group estimated that EU-based companies would pay €4.3bn in tariffs and lose sales between 2024 and 2027, resulting in about 500,000 fewer vehicles being made. “The UK is the number one export market for European carmakers. A quarter of EVs go to the UK,” she said.0 -
farmer was a mate of the FiL so no wind-up. Hedge subsidies per metre were ata national rate he could get a contractor to do the work for a third of the cost. The Govt paid him to lie in bed.Jezyboy said:Presumably it's either outright fraud, not the whole story, a poor use of subsidies, a farmer winding SC up, or a mixture of all the above ...
One of his mates had planning refused for another giant chicken shed but he was not that bothered as farming subsidies were going to pay his appeal costs.
They are a nice bunch of blokes and to be honest I don't blame them for rippingthe arse out of a sh1t system0 -
Where's the beef!
I trained as a chef a fair while back and have been fortunate to eat in a fair few good restaurants across Europe (those damn poncey Michelin star places
). This is a controversial opinion, but in terms purely of taste, the best supermarket meat (your taste the difference, 30 day aged etc. kind of thing) is not that far off the rare breed farmed on a mountain top in the Pyrenees kind of meat.
It is subjective but I have never been convinced that Angus is particularly better than any other native breeds; Dexter, Galloway, Hereford etc. are just as good IMO. If you are French then you will be convinced that Limousin or Charolais are unmatched. It is all just personal preference though really.
The trend now is for ex-dairy cows that are 5 years old or more as chefs love to talk about 'provenance'. This also means the stuff that used to get thrown away or sold off cheap like Galician dairy cattle is now on menu's for about £100 for a 4-500 gram rib of beef.
As for other produce, just based on experience, continental fruit and veg tends to have far better flavour, I find. Supermarket F&V in the UK is pretty tasteless. You can get very good quality stuff that is native such as asparagus, red fruits etc., but you have to find a very good grower who knows what they are doing (and would be far too small to ever supply a supermarket. Farmer's markets are very hit and miss, you tend to need to go direct to the grower, or if you are in the restaurant trade you will have a supplier that sources the best stuff for you.
There used to be a restaurant in Chiswick called Hedone. The Chef/owner, Mikael Jonsson was obsessed with produce. The quality and taste of the stuff he sourced, fruit/veg/meat/fish was unlike anything else I have ever tasted in any other restaurant.0 -
There were a couple of dishes that I ate there that could not have been improved in any way. Outstanding restaurant. And then they gave us a loaf of bread on the way out which was a bit weird.MidlandsGrimpeur2 said:
There used to be a restaurant in Chiswick called Hedone. The Chef/owner, Mikael Jonsson was obsessed with produce. The quality and taste of the stuff he sourced, fruit/veg/meat/fish was unlike anything else I have ever tasted in any other restaurant.
Didn't he give it up because the stress was too much?0 -
Didn't he give it up because the stress was too much?
It was a combination of things I think. He struggled to recruit post Brexit and (like many restaurants) had to cut the number of services he could run per week. In the end he just couldn't make the numbers work financially and the stress of it all led to it closing.
Real shame, as you say KG it was an outstanding restaurant and nothing else really like it in the UK.
Ah, the bread. They became really well known for their sourdough loaves, and supplied a lot of other restaurants. He started up a bakery, which is still going as far as I am aware. I guess rather than chocolate/sweets, you got a loaf of bread at the end of the meal!0 -
As reported in the Telegraph.In an interview with The Telegraph he said: “There’s no joy in saying: well, ‘we told you so’ because people are having to live with that reality.”
In 2018, Mr Carney published a report alongside his colleague with doom-laden predictions, including a no-deal scenario that triggered up to a 30pc drop in house prices and a recession more damaging than the financial crisis.
Mr Carney, who led the Bank for seven years until 2020, said a series of “negative supply shocks” had disrupted the economy and led to an unexpected increase in costs.
He said the single biggest energy shock since the 1970s, combined with a shrinking workforce and the impact of Brexit had triggered a “unique” adjustment in the UK that he suggested could take years to unwind.
“We laid out in advance of Brexit that this will be a negative supply shock for a period of time and the consequence of that will be a weaker pound, higher inflation and weaker growth. And the central bank will need to lean against that. Now that’s exactly what’s happened. It’s happened in coincidence with other factors, but it is a unique aspect of the economic adjustment that’s going on here.”
The people in the article disagreeing with Carney's analysis are 'Sir' Rees-Smug and Andrea Leadsom. Intellectual heavyweights.0
