A LEADING supermarket director believes there is a large demand for regional brands among consumers.

Dr Kevin Hawkins, Safeway director of communications, said almost half of all English consumers would prefer to eat meat labelled English.

"There is also a significant minority support for Scottish beef but no-one really prefers meat from outside the UK," he said.

Dr Hawkins was addressing a pre-Beef 2002 conference at Alnwick Castle, held by the National Beef Association and the Royal Smithfield Club.

"We have scope for developing English regional brands, but it cannot be done in five minutes," he said. The entire supply chain would have to work together and communicate with each other.

He believed that, in the future, supplies would be direct from dedicated abattoirs with long-term contracts and guaranteed prices for producers.

Dr Hawkins said Safeway's own poll of 1,000 customers showed that more than half were very confident about British beef and red meat, while 25pc had only slight worries. Interestingly, some of those worries were about the meat in ready meals, rather than fresh sales.

Penetration of red meat was very high at 94pc, compared with Safeway's best selling product - bananas - whose penetration was 80pc, but the aim had to be to increase the eating frequency.

He confirmed that price was a powerful driver of sales. "When we put mince and topside on offer, sales soar," said Dr Hawkins, who added that it could lead to supply problems.

"When we do a promotion, we need the quantity of supply of beef and for some time we have not been able to source enough from the UK. We have had to source some from the Irish but, when we can get supplies back, we will go back to 100pc British, which we are almost at in lamb and do have with pork."

Christopher Dodds, a partner with Penrith Farmers and Kidds, spoke about their successful Cumbrian Fell-Bred Beef scheme, which required stock to be born and raised in Cumbria from a beef sire.

He suggested the Scots and Welsh wanted their own produced meat because their countries had been branded.

"The branding of English meat is non-existent but, with the Cumbrian scheme, we are trying to bring the producer closer to the market place," he said.

In fact they had reached the point where they were naming the farm from which the meat had come, and the 248 hotels, restaurants and butchers supplied were happy to pay a premium for that.

"This could have very big interest," said Mr Dodds. "We are also very close to signing contracts with one of the largest supermarket chains to go on to their butchers' counters, not just the shelves in their stores."

They have also just won a contract to supply the main restaurant at the Commonwealth Games complex in Manchester and have put on a special line to supply Galloway meat to Selfridges' food hall in Oxford Street. If customers respond well to the July-August promotion, they expect to be asked to continue with the supplies.

Farmers who take part in the scheme receive a premium as long as they meet the required weight and fat levels. Meat and Livestock Commission graders are used as they are considered by the scheme to be the only independent graders.

Mr Dodds said he believed branded products were a very important part of the industry and needed to be maintained and supported.

He revealed that he had been asked to explore developing similar schemes in Yorkshire and Lancashire.

David Gunner, managing director of Dovecot Park abbatoir, Pontefract, also expressed confidence in British beef. They supply the 130 Waitrose supermarkets, chiefly with Aberdeen Angus beef although they were developing Hereford and organic beef schemes.

"We are heavily committed to the British beef industry and the fact that there has been a steady increase in beef consumption since 1996 and BSE is good news," he said.

"The UK consumer does like our product; the UK consumer has regained trust in British beef. There are opportunities. We can build on the confidence the consumer now has in British beef and the high standards we have."

He commented that Dovecot operated a transparent price structure and producer prices were not altered during the foot-and-mouth crisis, with the full support of Waitrose.

Norman Bagley, policy director of the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers, said the small/medium abattoirs handled a large proportion of red meat and could not be ignored.

He accepted that, while the UK was not self-sufficient in beef supplies, supermarkets would have to look elsewhere to maintain supplies, but he was concerned by cheap imports and was concerned that Ireland could find itself with a surplus of 800,000 tonnes of beef this autumn if orders from Egypt were not forthcoming.

Mr Bagley had no problem with assurance schemes but did not like the Little Red Tractor scheme. "To me it is jobs for the boys," he said. "It has little benefit to farmers and little benefit to food safety."

He claimed the scheme was unworkable for small and medium abattoirs, unlike the Quality Meat scheme operated in Scotland.

* More reports from Beef 2002 in next week's paper