New cutting guide aims to boost veal sales

The guide, which follows a similar format to the existing beef and lamb cutting guide, is aimed at caterers, suppliers and retailers, illustrating how to cut veal to certain specifications to best utilise a carcase and maximise the return from the animal. First produced three years ago by EBLEX, the beef and lamb cutting guide containing 230 beef and lamb cuts, has proven to be a vital communication tool between buyer and supplier. It is available to Quality Standard Mark (QSM) members as a CD-ROM, as is the new veal guide. "Often all we see in retail shops and on restaurant menus is veal escallops and calf's liver, but there is so much more than can be done with the right cuts of veal," said Dick van Leeuwen, of EBLEX, author of the new cutting guide. "The veal cutting guide shows how much more versatile the meat is and includes almost 100 veal cuts, each supported by a full step-by-step cutting specification. Finding a commercially viable way of making best use of bull calves would avoid many of them having to be put down at birth – a practice which nobody is comfortable with and the public are rightly concerned about. "We hope this veal cutting guide can help to stimulate the debate and give a welcome boost to the veal market in the UK." The domestic market for veal is currently quite small and specialised, although there are ready supplies of dairy bred bull calves which would ideally suit the veal market. TV chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recently highlighted the British veal industry and the efforts being made by some farmers to rear the animals in superior conditions until they enter the food chain. For more information on the cutting guides, call the scheme hotline on 0800 781 4221.