Supermarkets across Oxfordshire were today preparing their shelves for the return of T-bone steak.

It follows the Government's lifting of the beef-on-the-bone ban this week - which was met with widespread joy by farmers in the county.

Stores are expecting sales to do well and many butchers - some of whom flouted the law and continued to sell banned products - believe customers have already forgotten the scare.

A spokesman for Tesco at Oxford Retail Park in Cowley said: "We will be selling beef-on-the-bone from Saturday in all our stores and we are expecting a good response from customers. "I think sales will go well, as people now put the scare about beef behind them."

Steve Surman, acting manager of Waitrose in Abingdon, said he was waiting for instructions from his meat buying department before he could stock the product.

"There isn't any on sale at the moment and we will wait to hear from head office," he said.

Sainsbury spokesman Greg Dawson said beef-on-the-bone was currently on sale at five London stores but would be on offer across the country, including Oxfordshire, when the ban was officially lifted on December 17. Mark Howard, chairman of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire branch of the National Farmers' Union said the decision to lift the ban was long overdue.

Mr Howard, of Weston Farm, Weston-on-the-Green, added: "I hope the next step will be resolving the French dispute as they used this ban as an excuse to stop our exports." Beef and dairy farmer David Christensen, of Kingston Hill Farm, Kingston Bagpuize, said he had suffered financially from the ban.

Mr Christensen, who farms 200 beef cattle, said: "The ban has obviously had a knock-on effect on sales but now we should see an upturn."

But Andy Brock, owner of Brock Butchers, in Elms Parade, Botley, warned: "I think people may still stay away from T-bone. I think the damage has been well and truly done."

Story date: Friday 03 December

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.