THE traditional British roast beef dinner is at risk of becoming a luxury experience.

Prices of UK beef on the wholesale market have rocketed and leading chefs are now having to pay more for prime fillet, sirloin and rump steaks than for foie gras. Suppliers to top hotels and restaurants are charging from £31 to £35 a kilogram for premium British beef, while a kilogram of finest foie gras from southwest France is £27 to £28. A year ago top quality beef cost £21 to £25 a kilogram.

Nigel Fredericks, who supplies top London hotels and chefs including Gordon Ramsay, said: “Our buyer this week ordered 800 fillets from a long-standing supplier and he was told he could only have 70. A crisis is looming and chefs will have to think seriously about taking prime cuts off the menu or putting up prices.”

The market is so intense, with demand outstripping supply, that supermarkets expect to increase prices for prime cuts of beef in coming weeks.

So far the high prices appear to be affecting the top end of the catering market, but meat industry experts predict that beef prices on the high street face sharp increases this autumn.

Supplies of prime meat are so scarce that some supermarkets may not be able to source top fillet, and buyers may have to switch to cheaper cuts.

Sainsbury’s and Asda both gave warning that shoppers may be hit by higher prices for prime beef.

Ed Bedington, the editor of Meat Trades Journal, said: “Shoppers have not really noticed yet because I expect supermarket buyers will be trying to negotiate down the wholesale prices, but soon they will have to acknowledge the rise.

“Supermarkets will be eyeing each other to see who will break first.”

It is the first time in a decade that Britain’s 10,000 beef farmers have reason to smile. The price paid to farmers slumped to £1.55 per kg last year, but by July that had risen to about £1.85 per kg. Farmers now get an average of £2.10 per kg, though the highest quality beef is almost £2.40 per kg.

Robert Forster, spokesman for the National Beef Association, said: “There is a growing mood of optimism and confidence and with beef in demand retailers recognise they must pay higher prices to farmers for the cost of production.”

The price rise has been triggered by a shortage of beef supplies around the world.

British beef prices have mainly been boosted after the re-opening of export markets in continental Europe last year after a nine-year ban imposed during the BSE crisis.

Last year farmers produced 762,000 tonnes of beef, 72 per cent of the amount consumed in Britain, but this year the figure is expected to be nearly 900,000 tonnes.

BSE crisis leaves an unexpected legacy

TEN years ago the first link was made between eating beef and the human form of “mad- cow” disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Hysteria about mince and beef burgers grew to such an extent that shoppers bought expensive pieces of steak and asked for them to be minced so that they could guarantee the quality of the meat.

The market collapsed. British beef was banned on the Continent and panic spread to the rest of the world.

Ministers tried to restore calm. John Gummer, then Agriculture Minister, was pilloried for publicly feeding a burger to his young daughter.

But who could have imagined such a swift turnaround? Beef farmers, the meat industry and Cabinet Ministers worked tirelessly to build up the UK herd. British beef is now promoted as among the safest in the world.

Cases of BSE in cattle born after the 1996 emergency controls still crop up but, as every carcass is tested at the abattoir, the meat does not enter the food chain.

Today 40 per cent of diners choose beef in restaurants, and the rest of Europe is clamouring for our meat.

However, Britons remain modest beef eaters — the average consumption in the UK is 17.6kg per person a year, well below the 28.2kg eaten by the French, 27.5kgs by the Danes and 24kgs by Italians.

Now that beef, in particular prime fillet, is almost a luxury item, it might become even more fashionable at home.

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