The sale of beef in supermarkets has dropped by up to 8 per cent after the latest scare about beef on the bone, according to industry sources. Next week will be the test for lamb, as the pre-Christmas period is one of the busiest lamb-buying seasons in the year.
Supermarket representatives were unwilling to say on the record that beef sales had dropped. However, Mr Eugene Kierans, spokesman for the Irish Master Butchers' Federation, said the warnings about beef and lamb were having no effect on meat sales. "I'd say people are scientifically exhausted and scientifically exasperated. I think it's now gone to a stage where they don't seem to pass any remarks."
The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, said last Friday that beef on the bone should not be sold. On Wednesday an EU committee recommended a ban on lamb and goat meat on the bone which is more than 12 months old.
Superquinn's marketing director, Mr Eamon Quinn, said some customers complained last Saturday when beef on the bone was removed from the shelves. "A number of customers said: `Look, I understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, but can I please have my T-bone steak back'." He said the supermarket's lamb was not affected as it was under 12 months.
A spokesman for Dunnes Stores said beef on the bone accounted for less than 1 per cent of the supermarket's beef sales. And there had been "no discernible effect as of yet" on sales of lamb. A spokesman for Musgraves, the franchise owner for 400 Super Valu and Centra stores, said the company had advised shops to remove beef on the bone from the shelves. "Most shops have their own in-store butchers so it has not been such a problem. There doesn't seem to be any panic or reaction from the consumer.
"Unlike the original BSE scare, which affected an awful lot of other products, this is Irish meat coming out of Irish herds off the pastures and people seem to be very trusting of it."
Restaurant customers have not been put off by the warnings, according to Ms Sharon Gaffney, assistant manager of Blakes Restaurant in Dublin. Meat on the bone "still gets eaten and it still gets enjoyed".
The restaurant does not sell T-bones but the rack of lamb is still popular. It has not taken it off the menu and would do so only if consumer demand dropped.
"We would have a continuous stream of T-bone lovers," said Mr Padraig McLaughlin, area group manager of the FXB restaurant chain. Red meat accounts for about 70 per cent of the restaurants' nightly sales - 40 per cent of it meat on the bone.
"It hasn't fazed our customers. We didn't get any comments. And we certainly didn't ask."
The chairman of the Consumers' Association of Ireland, Dr Peter Dargan, blamed "vested economic interests" for confusing the BSE debate. "This has led young consumers to trolley past the meat counter and with them goes the future of the meat industry."
Dr Dargan, a vet, said recent criticism of Mr Cowen by veterinary spokesmen had done nothing to allay consumer fears of mad cow disease. "I believe that Mr Cowen not only did the right thing by consumers, by pointing out the small real risk of bone marrow material in food, but indeed it was his duty to do so."
Dr Dargan said the Consumers' Association would like to be able to support and promote Irish beef in its natural state. "We can only do this with certified farm practices and total transparency."
He added that one good result of the BSE "debacle", both in the UK and the Republic, was that all food matters had to come under consumer control.