Today's Independent gives over the whole of page 2 to a somewhat baffling story, Chicken injected with beef waste sold in UK.

Its standfirst tells readers: Muslims and Jews conned into eating meat bulked out with cow and pig products.

I have read this article several times now and I cannot find any evidence to support this assertion. If one eats kosher chicken, sold in a supervised kosher butcher's shop, the food chain is directly traceable to the shochet with, as far as I understand, no opportunity for the alleged adulteration to occur.

There is a distressed quotation from the Hindu Forum of Britain — but nothing from anyone in the Jewish communty.

I would like to know more. So, I bet, would the Indie's Jewish readers.

UPDATE: I've just received this very helpful information from David Rose, executive director at the London Board of Shechita. He says:

"International food fraud is a rapidly growing crime, as recognised by the Government’s Food Standards Agency setting up a special task force. In the current economic climate with fluctuating foreign exchange rates and spiraling livestock prices, consumers are rightly looking for a bargain, and fraud poses a threat to all.

"But those who buy kosher meat and poultry certified by British not-for-profit shechita supervising bodies, such as the London Board for Shechita, can be confident that they are not at risk of fraud. Kosher meat and poultry is supervised from the moment of slaughter right through to the butcher shop counter or the factory despatch bay. The products will not contain any undeclared additives and the UK shechita and kashrus supervision process is so stringent that it would be impossible for kosher products to be adulterated by unscrupulous manufacturers.

"Buying chicken or meat at an LBS licensed outlet or with the LBS kosher certification should guarantee the buyer the peace of mind that the product has not been tampered with in any way before reaching them."

This seems to me to clarify the situation as far as kosher consumers are concerned. But it now looks as though the Indie's report is little more than scaremongering. David Rose's quote was cut from their article, though supplied in time. Never spoil a good story for a few facts, as the old newspaper adage has it.