Food Safety - Paul Hobbs, Principal EHO Horsham District Council


Charcuterie supply problems and price rises


On a warm sunny Saturday afternoon a few weeks back, I found myself wandering among some food stalls at a local farmers market. You won’t be surprised to read that a stall selling a range of charcuterie products grabbed my attention. The stallholder and I engaged in conversation where he spoke about experiencing supply issues for raw materials.


Given the combined consequence of Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, HGV driver shortage and the war in Ukraine, I am not surprised to hear that the global supply chain is under pressure. The thought piqued my interest so I decided to do some research of my own. I spoke to a few local charcuterie manufacturers and asked them if they too were experiencing supply issues.


The responses were varied, some had anticipated supply issues ahead of Brexit so stocked up beforehand and had not yet experienced any change. Some reported recent short delays in delivery times while others said they’d experienced supply issues for certain seasonings; these appeared to be for ingredients coming into the UK from outside of the EU.


One manufacturer producing biltong & jerky for a national supermarket reported issues with UK beef supply. Their suppliers claim that a reduction in UK slaughterhouse and cutting plants production capacity is to blame. This has had a huge impact on their marketing as they have had to remove their ‘Pure UK Beef Pledge’ from the packaging. They are now having to use alternatively sourced beef.


However, there was one common major element affecting all those I spoke with - the increased cost of raw materials.


One producer gave me the following examples:


• Curing salt, cost increase of approximately 22%,


• Dried herbs, cost increase of approximately 42%, and


• Natural Casing (Hog and Sheep) costs have increased by approximately 120% and are still rising


When supply costs increase there are several options available to deal with it. You can just


let any increase eat into your profit margins, pass on the increase to the customer or substitute the most expensive ingredients for cheaper alternatives.


Businesses that look at changing ingredient suppliers need to do so with an element of caution. If you cannot find a like-for-like alternative it may mean that you need to adjust the recipe or product specifications to take account of different ingredient composition. New ingredients may introduce new allergens or food colourings which will have to be declared.


I recall a few years ago being contacted by a small producer of fermented chorizo. He asked for advice as his latest microbiological sampling results had detected high levels of bacillus cereus bacteria. Previous results had always been satisfactory, so he was keen to know why the results had gone from good to bad. Bacillus cereus are usually associated with cereals and in particular rice, so I was somewhat surprised to find them present in a sausage. When we looked at the recipe it transpired that the producer had started to use a cheaper supply of paprika which, unlike the normal supply had not been heat treated. On speaking with the laboratory, they advised that unpasteurised


seasonings could contain a host of pathogenic bacteria from salmonella to listeria. When the producer reverted back to his old supplier, hey presto, the micro results came back as satisfactory.


If you are looking to change suppliers, make sure they provide quality and safe ingredients, keeping customers safe is a number one priority.


Our advice is to use simple base recipes and stick to a winning formula. Where you can, have one supplier for certain foods and if you do have a backup ensure that they are reputable and can meet your needs.


The National Craft Butchers Charcuterie Assured Advice gives useful tips on the use of ingredients, seasonings, preservatives, etc. Don’t forget that the advice is Primary Authority Assured and if followed gives you reassurance that what you are doing is correct.


The NCB team and I will be reviewing this guidance soon, so if you have any experiences you can share, or if you would like us to cover other aspects of charcuterie, please get in touch by e-mailing info@ nationalcraftbutchers.co.uk


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