Thousands of tonnes of American beef are on their way to the UK under a new trade deal between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The agreement will see enough meat shipped to serve one medium steak to every adult in the country—13,000 tonnes in total.
The UK Government has insisted that controversial hormone-treated beef—common in US supermarkets—won’t be part of the deal.
These cattle are injected with growth hormones to speed up muscle growth and reduce the time to slaughter, making production faster and cheaper.
But the practice has been linked to concerns such as early puberty in children and increased cancer risk in consumers.
Hormone-grown beef has been banned in the UK since 1989 after the EU declared it unsafe.
Similarly, chicken ‘cleaned’ with chlorine, another of the Government’s ‘red line’ products, will remain prohibited.
However, experts have warned that border checks designed to catch beef-sellers trying to sneak such meat into the country, may not be strong enough.
The UK Government has been clear that controversial hormone-treated beef, linked to issues like early puberty in children and cancers, won’t be included in the deal
About 80 per cent of all beef produced in the US comes from animals fed growth boosting hormones, according to the United States Cattlemen’s Association.
These hormones results in more meat per animal and an overall more profitable enterprise for the producer.
However, an alarming report in the 70s suggested that Italian schoolboys were developing breast tissue after allegedly being fed meat containing hormones.
Similar reports also linked the product to causing earlier than normal puberty in girls.
Additionally, some of the hormones used in US beef production were assessed by EU scientists as having the potential to cause cancers, including those of the breasts and prostate.
But in contrast, experts in the US, as well as Australia where these hormones are also used, insist it is safe for human consumption.
Keeping such hormone-boosted beef out of Britain will rely on spot-checks conducted at the border.
And the current system isn’t fool-proof, according to Professor Chris Elliott, an expert in food safety at Queen’s University Belfast.
US secretary of agriculture Brooke Rollins said the new trade deal ‘is going to exponentially increase our beef exports’ to the UK
He said such tests were expensive, each costing hundreds of pounds and there were signs it wasn’t catching all cases.
‘There has previously been evidence that meat claimed as “hormone free” was in fact treated with anabolic steroids,’ he told The Telegraph.
Dr Elisa Pineda, an expert in public health at Imperial College London, said enforcement was ‘complex and resource-intensive’.
Additionally, Liz Webster, the founder of the group Save British Farming, claimed despite reassurances from ministers the trade deal could see low-quality beef reach consumers.
‘We’ve opened our doors to US beef and ethanol. But as our border checks are barely functioning. How we’ll enforce standards is anyone’s guess,’ she wrote on X.
‘It’s all very well from packaging up the details and saying, “Oh, it’s fine we will only give you the good stuff.” There is no mechanism to ensure that that happens.’
Mark Borthwick, the UK farming policy manager at the charity World Animal Protection has also expressed concern.
‘It is not clear that the UK has the internal or border infrastructure to screen for animal products not produced to the correct standards. Cuts have compromised our ability to provide this assurance,’ he said.
British farmers have also raised concerns, mainly about transparency about what goes on in extreme large-scale US beef production.
Ian McCubbine a Surrey-based farmer, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘A Texas feedlot that’s 19-miles long, how do we know what they’re putting in? We just don’t know. We just don’t know that.’
A report from the British food safety regular, The Food Standards Agency, said it had detected steroids in one test of imported animal derived foods in 2022-23.
However, the watchdog did not name the country of origin not the exact substance detected.
The British Government has insisted that checks to ensure such beef doesn’t enter the UK are stringent enough.
Darren Jones, chief Secretary to the Treasury, told the Today programme last week said: ‘Companies, whether in the United States or in other parts of the world, know that because of those food production standards if they try to import hormone-treated meat, for example, that that is in breach of the law, he said.
‘There are checks on these products at the border and if people are in breach of the law there will be consequences for that.’
Currently, US beef imports account for a tiny fraction of that entering the UK market, about 0.05 per cent, according to Government figures.
However, Sir Keir insisted there will be no weakening of UK food standards on imports, meaning US-style chlorinated chickens will remain illegal in the UK
This is vastly behind nations like Ireland (76 per cent) and Australia (3 per cent).
However, the US is keen to for this to change under the new trade deal.
Brooke Rollins, the US agriculture secretary, said beef imports will grow ‘exponentially’ thanks to the agreement.
Hormones aren’t the only additive considered controversial in US-beef.
One is ammonium hydroxide, a cleaning agent added to some American-beef products.
Called Lean Finely Textured Beef, but better known as ‘pink slime’, it is created by taking beef trimmings, running them through a centrifuge and exposing them to ammonia to kill any bacteria before being added to beef mince products.
A report previously found this pink slime was found in 70 per cent of American burger meat.
While not considered a health hazard in itself, the fact ammonia needs to be used to ‘clean’ the beef at all has raised questions about the conditions the animals are raised and processed in, similar to the chlorinated-chicken debate.
Pink slime isn’t permitted to be used in UK-meat for human consumption, though it can be used in pet food.
Another health issue present in US-beef is the heavy use of antibiotics.
Overuse of these life-saving medications is linked to rise of drug-resistant bacteria, which can turn previously easily treated infections into life-threatening emergencies.
Widespread proactive use of antibiotics is permitted in the US beef industry, raising fears drug-resistant bacteria could transfer to humans.
While the drugs are also used in cattle in the UK, their use is more limited with farmers needing medical justification as to why their animals need them.
Chlorinated-chicken is another of British Government’s red line products that won’t be included in the deal.
The controversial practise involves using chlorine to clean the animal’s carcass in bid to kill any dangerous bacteria.
While there are some health risks linked to chlorine most experts say it isn’t likely to cause health problems in the amounts used in chicken processing.
Instead, the criticism largely comes from why the chemical is needed in the first place.
Critics say the chlorine wash allows some producers to use lower standards of animal hygiene and welfare.
There is also some evidence that it isn’t 100 per cent effective.
A 2014 report by a US non-profit body found 97 per cent of American chicken breasts tested positive for bacteria like salmonella and E.coli.
Half of breasts tested also came back positive for at least one type of drug-resistant bacteria.
Chlorinated-chicken was banned across the EU in 1997, with Britain maintaining the ban post-Brexit.
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