Keuringsdienst van Waarde investigates Keurslager: what exactly do they inspect?

You’ve surely seen them: the butchers with the red-and-blue Keurslager sign. A Keurslager must be a top-quality butcher. One who inspects their own meat or is rigorously inspected themselves. Right? But what does Keurslager REALLY mean? And is a Keurslager so much better than a ‘regular’ butcher? Keuringsdienst van Waarde, recently awarded third place in the FavorFlav Food Top 100, investigated, and I can tell you: it’s another episode making waves.

The Keurslager association didn’t exactly come off brilliantly before. In 2021, they were the Liegebeest of the year. The reason: there were fast-growing chickens in the display cases. That was despite the butchers’ association claiming that butchers pay close attention to animal welfare.

183 inspection points

The crème de la crème of butchers—that’s how the Keurslager group is described when presenter Marijn Frank has one of its members on the phone. It is supposedly a group of enthusiastic, passionate and exclusive butchers. A bunch of professionals who go one step further than the ‘ordinary’ butcher. But the word ‘marketing club’ soon comes up as well. It would mainly be a signal to consumers: this is where you’ll find better-quality meat.

So what exactly is inspected, Marijn wonders? Hygiene, for example. Or whether the pavement outside the shop is clean. There are as many as 183 points checked, as becomes clear from one of the telephone interviews.

Does the Keurslager inspect meat?

Presenter Maarten Remmers decides to visit Keurslager’s headquarters. He speaks to the director, Astrid van Ekeren. She describes the Keurslagers as a group with craftsmanship, passion and knowledge of meat. Yet, like the Keurslager Marijn spoke to, she also refers to a promotional activity intended to boost sales. When Maarten asks whether they inspect the meat, it turns out they do not. They don’t do so because the butchers are ‘independent entrepreneurs who make their own choices’. They do offer advice, but the butchers themselves decide which meat ultimately ends up in the display cases.

The ‘keur’ in Keurslager therefore does not stand for ‘quality mark’. And among those 183 inspection points, inspecting the meat is not one of them.

Meat concepts

Soon, the conversation turns to meat concepts. Um, concepts? Meat is meat, right? No—apparently, an entire concept can be built around it. Take Tante Door chicken, which presenter Ersin Kiris visits. That concept turns out to be mainly the chicken’s name and story. Tante Door chicken is slow-growing chicken (meaning it grows by no more than 50 grams per day), a chicken that lives longer and gets plenty of daylight. It also gets lots of distraction material, because that’s good for them. Sounds like a good concept. A good story, in other words.

Free-range pigs

Another meat concept visited in the episode is PorkBest. Meat trader Patrick van den Berg takes Ersin to an ‘experience space’. It is heated to recreate the sensation of being a pig. It feels pleasantly warm there; the pigs feel that too. The PorkBest flyer also says that the pigs ‘happily roam around’. So are they free-range pigs, Ersin asks? No, not that, Patrick says. He talks about better values than those of ‘ordinary’ pigs. For example, PorkBest pigs score better in terms of flavour, welfare and medication use.

Tante Door chicken

What stands out is that neither Tante Door nor PorkBest carries the Beter Leven quality mark. These quality marks are awarded by the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals. Tante Door says it has itself checked by an external party. Is that comparable to—or even better than—the Beter Leven quality mark, the Keuringsdienst van Waarde wonders? No, certainly not, says Niels Dortland of the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals. In terms of welfare, they score below or just below the Beter Leven star rating. It turns out that relatively few Keurslagers actually sell meat with a Beter Leven quality mark.

Illusion

The Keuringsdienst also visits Foodwatch, the well-known food watchdog. Nicole van Gemert of Foodwatch says that a meat concept is essentially ‘an illusion you create’. You eat meat from an animal that supposedly grows up well, eats healthily and is happy. But—in Niels Dortland’s words—it is often just empty marketing claims. For example, the claim that the animals receive no antibiotics? That stuff has been banned for years. So the fact that they do not receive it is only logical. About PorkBest, Nicole says: ‘It is the best in terms of marketing language and the best for the butcher’s wallet, but not necessarily the best for the pig.’

Take the butcher’s word for it?

Of course, there are also meat concepts that are inspected. Ones that do have a Beter Leven star or have received another quality mark. The thing is, at the supermarket you KNOW that you are not putting a fast-growing chicken in your basket, whereas at the butcher’s (such as a Keurslager), you don’t always know. That does not mean the meat is not of good quality, but independent inspection may be missing. As Nicole from Foodwatch says: I have to take the butcher’s word for it. So the question for you is: will you fall for those beautiful blue eyes or not?

Also read:

• Keuringsdienst van Waarde checks E460 (cellulose) in our food
• Drain cleaner in your olive?! Keuringsdienst van Waarde shows you
• 5 things you want to know about meat but don’t dare ask the butcher

Source: Keuringsdienst van Waarde