Countryfile is a weekly programme that airs weekly on BBC One reporting on agricultural, environmental and farming affairs.
Past chair of the Hospital Caterers Association (HCA) Jones is responsible for the food bought by a hospital in the Midlands serving up to 400 meals a day. At the hospital the budget for each patients’ daily meals is just £4 a day.
Jones said: “For us it’s the quality, our budgets are tight but we know we have to offer the best quality product for our children, for people who want to get better in our hospitals, universities and prisons.”
It is against the rules for caterers supplying the public sector to use lower standard meat yet those rules aren’t enforced and are rarely monitored. Jones said that lower quality meat could end up on public sector menus.
Countryfile presenter, Tom Heap asked Jones if the rules were being broken? Jones replied: “Absolutely yes. Recently I went out to tender I was offered Red Tractor and non-specified, that could come from Australia, Canada or America. But their standards are so lower than ours. We are told everyone is 100% compliant. Who is auditing it, who is coming out and checking? Nobody.”
