I've worked in farming myself for a while,
and as Bee says, there's a lot of paperwork required to be filled in and recorded by British farmers these days, in the name of traceability, unfortunately livestock, slaughtered/butchered animals and all other food products are travelling considerable and not entirely neccessary mileages, which does kind of make the records useful. The fact is that some areas of the EU and outside of it only pay lip service to the legislation (no good making regulations if not everybody complies and not everybody enforces them eh?)
You would be well advised to avoid Dutch and Danish pork and bacon products if you care about animal welfare for instance, it doesn't reach the same standards that British farms apply.
Cost is a big part of the problem of course, while we all want cheaper food, big and small food companies are naturally looking to maximise profit, so inevitably means of reducing costs were found, some not very appealing processes were pushed through and some of the stuff we eat, although cheap, maybe isn't actually even worth that price compared to more traditional produce.
We say it wouldn't be so bad if we knew what was in it, but a fair proportion of the population doesn't want to find out, has no interest beyond "is it cheap, and does it fill me up and does it taste ok?" (and there our palates have been dulled by poor quality, adulterated with flavourings)
I don't profess to know the answer, there has to be some sense in making use of local produce, whether from independent shops in your area or farmers markets and conventional markets, as much as you can/whenever time and finances allow.
By the way, Linda McCartney veggie products were found to have meat in a few years back, after all they're produced in big factories too.
