Horse Trading
We are told not to buy counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbags or DVDs from down the Barras or from e-bay because they fund criminal gangs that are often involved in other unsavoury activities such as human trafficking and drug smuggling. What we aren't told is that is we keep on the straight and narrow using legitimate brands and widely respected retailers we could still unwittingly fund the same criminal gangs. As the story of the horse meat sold as beef scandal develops it is becoming clearer that that is what is happenning: Polish and Italian criminal gangs using intimidation to get the horse meat signed off as beef before exporting to traders in Cyprus and the Netherlands before reaching producers in France which then process it before finally sending it to the UK. On reflection, it is not a surprising outcome of the way the food system works: a combination of globalisation, long supply chains and a constant pressure to reduce costs. The big f...