Steak drought: Why Wetherspoons had to pull meat from the menu

The crisis that saw steak swapped for quinoa salad in every single Wetherspoon pub across the country is spreading.

Spoons steak supplier Russell Hume is at the centre of a growing food hygiene crisis that is enveloping schools, care homes and restaurants. Food regulators ordered locations to stop serving meat provided by Russell Hume, including Jamie's Italian and Tiger Tiger. Six of the firm's processing factories were forced to close on Monday after the Food Standards Agency barred any meat from leaving. The agency announced yesterday that it had launched a probe after a visit to Russell Hume's Birmingham plant on January 12 highlighted "serious non-compliance with food hygiene regulations." It added: "All unused meat supplied by Russell Hume has been withdrawn from the businesses that they supply." Yesterday it was revealed that Spoons had withdrawn steaks from their menu, only to replace them with "poncey" quinoa salads. It has also emerged that Jamie Oliver restaurants also pulled Russell Hume meat and "immediately switched suppliers." Prof Chris Elliott, of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, warned: “This will further undermine trust in the entire UK food industry. “This is potentially one of the biggest food scandals since horsemeat.” The Food Standards Agency has urged restaurants and other customers with unused Russell Hume meat to dispose of it immediately. Russell Hume, which employs 400 staff across seven sites in the UK, appears to have gone into shutdown and has not responded to requests for comment. Their website is currently down and phone calls to their office are met with a repeating message of the firm's opening hours. In a statement issued via Wetherspoon, the company said: “The product recall was a precautionary measure because of mislabelling. We have no reason to believe the product was unsafe to eat.” Steak will not be returning to the chain until they find a new supplier.