Waitrose announced that it will be building its own UK capability to produce a range of frozen meat products.
The new unit is planned to be operational within the next three months and will be based at Dovecote Park’s state of the art facility in Yorkshire.
Dovecote Park has been exclusively supplying Waitrose since 1997 with high quality fresh beef products including fresh burgers, steaks and joints. All the beef processed by Dovecote Park is sourced from a known and trusted group of British farmers - none of the beef is bought on the open market.
In recent weeks Waitrose has taken the precautionary action of removing two frozen meat products, beefburgers and meatballs - not produced by Dovecote Park - from its branches.
The frozen beef burgers were put back on sale after tests confirmed that the meat in the product was 100 per cent beef. More recently, one test on frozen meatballs showed that the meat in them was, as it should be, 100 per cent beef. However, another test indicated there may be some pork in some of the meatballs and the product was therefore taken off sale. Neither frozen beefburgers nor frozen meatballs tested positive for horsemeat.
Mark Price managing director commented: “Our customers rightly expect the highest standards of product quality and integrity from us and we won’t let anything stand in the way of our delivering this.
“Dovecote Park is a dedicated supplier to Waitrose. They share our values and our commitment to British farming so extending our joint activities into a range of frozen meat products is a tremendously positive move.”
