Food for Thought

The Welsh Assembly is understood to be on the verge of announcing a new TB control strategy - one that could include a cull of badgers within a limited area.

An announcement is expected mid-afternoon today.

When DEFRA first announced the likely cost of the bluetongue vaccine, farmers' initial reaction was 'ouch'! But now people have had time to think about it, views are changing. Because - let's face it - what's the alternative? As farmers on the FWiSpace discussion forums have said - paying 55p-98p a dose is cheaper than the cost of fallen stock disposal which can be £35/ewe in some parts of the country.

Farmers Weekly's Livestock Editor Jonathan Long says in the latest issue of the magazine that the matter of vaccination is an open and shut case. And rather than concentrating on the cost of vaccination, the industry should be looking at the value of it.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee will tomorrow publish its long-awaited report into the best way to control bovine TB.

The report, which will be released first thing in the morning and will feature prominently on FWi, is likely to draw plenty of media coverage. Farmers will no doubt also be letting us know what they think of the contents on the FWiSpace discussion forums.

But the big issue, of course, is how it goes down in DEFRA. Hilary Benn told the NFU conference last week that he was prepared to make a decision about a future control strategy and it would come after the EFRA report. Just how long after, is the big question?

Just last week a coalition of nearly 30 farm organisations told DEFRA that to charge livestock farmers for dealing with animal disease outbreaks (a plan known as cost-sharing) was "divorced from reality".

They pointed out - quite rightly - that the foot-and-mouth outbreak has cost the industry £100m and the sector is also suffering from rocketing feed and energy costs.

But DEFRA's response is to today publish a consultation which seeks views on how the farming industry could be further involved in the decision-making process for animal health and welfare..."and the principles of how the funding for animal health and welfare can be shared between government and the industry in the future."

It would seem that the industry's pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears.

Does this not explain why many farmers have no trust in DEFRA and no respect for DEFRA?

The farming industry is often criticised for not speaking with a united voice. So it is great to see a statement from over 25 organisations in the UK livestock sector setting out objections to the government's cost-sharing proposals.

The statement points out that the cost to the livestock sectors of this autumn’s animal disease outbreaks – caused in part by a leak from a Government-regulated research facility – is at least £100 million. In addition, the entire sector is suffering from rocketing feed and energy costs, to which prices have yet to adjust.

“To suggest, against that background, that the industry should be picking up additional costs from Government is divorced from reality”, the statement says.

Bluetongue and foot-and-mouth are not laughing matters. But I changed my mind when I read this from FW columnist Stephen Carr

Farmers hoping that DEFRA's epidemiological report into the bluetongue outbreak was going to be illuminating are going to be disappointed.

The report concludes that the infection was likely to have been initially introduced into Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex on the night of 4/5 August by windborne transmission of infected midges from continental Europe.

The report also describes the generally low morbidity, mortality and prevalence rates in infected animals. The majority of infected premises have only one infected animal and the prevalence is generally low.

Other than that - all it really says is further surveillance is going on.

The Scottish Executive has announced what it claims is a £25m aid package for Scotland's livestock farmers sruggling to deal with the effects of the foot-and-mouth crisis.

NFU Scotland's verdict is that the announcement is progress, but much more is needed (it is also putting the value of the package at £19m, rather than £25m).

NFUS President Jim McLaren said: “Today’s rescue package is just that. It is not compensation for losses, which go far higher than the money announced today. For a farmer with a 1000 breeding sheep, he will be facing losses in excess of £20,000. This aid package would put £6000 into that business. That may just be enough to cover the bills he’s facing now and bring some immediate relief, but it doesn’t get close to addressing his losses.

“It is a bitter disappointment that the welfare problems facing the pigs and dairy industry have not been recognised in today’s package. Both government and industry must now look urgently at getting export restrictions further unwound and processors must use the private storage aid made available by Brussels for pigmeat.

“We are an industry crippled by a disastrous set of circumstances that are not of our making and are the result of negligence. Over the next few days we will be looking further into options to get full justice and compensation for our members.”

The fight goes on.

Badger culling in order to tackle bovine tuberculosis seems to be more of a political possibility after a surprise report from the government's chief scientific adviser.

Sir David King has concluded that culling would be beneficial in areas surrounded by hard physical boundaries, such as coastline and motorways.

His conclusions also include:

• Badgers are a clear source of infection for cattle. Reducing the density of badgers in those areas of England where there is a significant level of TB in cattle reduces the incidence of TB in cattle in the same area;

• Removal of badgers should take place alongside the continued application of controls on cattle. Genuine commitment by all interested parties to the overall TB strategy is needed if TB is to be successfully controlled;

• Removal of badgers is the best option available at the moment to reduce the reservoir of infection in wildlife. But in the longer term, alternative or additional means of controlling TB in badgers, such as vaccination, may become available. Research into these should continue;

• Removal of badgers should only take place in those areas of the country where there is a high and persistent incidence of TB in cattle. It is not an appropriate measure in other areas.

There's more on this story on FWi

It has not been the best of days for the farming industry. First, it has emerged that bluetongue seems to have spread into Kent and Cambridgeshire and then came the news that DEFRA isn't in a position to pay early single farm payments.

Both issues have a certain inevitability about them and have prompted plenty of discussion on the FWiSpace forums but it wasn't what producers needed to hear...

Welcoming DEFRA's £12.5m aid package is of course a help to those who will receive some of the cash, but quite frankly it once again shows DEFRA's failure to grasp the seriouness of the situation.

Yes £8m will be gratefully received by the hill farmers of England, but it will only see each eligible farm receive about £850 each, a long way short of the estimated £10,000 average that each farm has lost due to foot and mouth movement controls.

And OK £2m will pay for a few more meat adverts, but where is the substance to back up these measly amounts. However, Mr Benn has unfortuately totally forgotten about the group of farmers now under greatest strain, those inside the bluetongue zone.

These farmers are unable to move any stock out of the zone, bar going to two abattoirs, one in West Sussex and one in Lincolnshire. They still can't trade through markets and there is no indication of when they may bee able to. Most worrying though is that the zone must stay in place for two midge seasons after the last case of bluetongue is seen, that means it will have to be there for at least another 18 months.

Moving the bluetongue protection zone boundary is the only way to save the south and east's livestock industry.

That may sound a harsh assesment of the situation, but as someone farming in Kent at the moment I can assure it isn't. Those of us trapped inside the zone have few marketing options and no chance to move stock to traditional winter grazings outside the zone.

The number of slaughterhouses in the zone is negligible, particularly when you look for any with serious capacity. Quite simply those finishing stock in the zone have been left high and dry and need access to their usual outlets, denying them this chance to trade is unforgiveable.

I can understand the reticence of farmers in other parts of the country to expand the zone, but I would urge them to consider how they would feel in our position. European evidence suggests animal movements play little if any part in bluetongue transmission, so there is no logic in trapping animals in an arbitary zone. More welfare problems will abound if this change isn't made early next week and businesses will collapse.

The combination of bluetongue disease and the Labour Party Conference is proving a rich seam of humour for political commentators and cartoonists.

Guido Fawkes carried a cartoon yesterday which takes a poke at Gordon Brown's recent meeting with Baroness Thatcher.

Similarly, Sky's political correspondent Adam Boulton has quoted DEFRA secretary Hilary Benn's dad Tony Benn as saying: "Bluetongue disease? I thought that was Margaret Thatcher's speeches..."

Funny? You decide.

Could 2007 get any worse for the livestock sector? First avian flu, then foot-and-mouth and now bluetongue.

There will be regular updates on the Farmers Weekly forums.

Farmers Weekly's team of journalists is tiny compared with the big news organisations like the BBC and Sky and the national papers.

So it is really nice to see Farmers Weekly Interactive getting the first interview with Robert Lawrence, the farmer at the centre of the latest outbreak of foot-and-mouth in Surrey.

Nice work by FW reporter Emily Padfield.

Gut wrenching, that's the only way I can describe this latest outbreak of foot and mouth. While the last outbreak in early August made life difficult, this one will make life next to impossible.

With sheep breeding sales kicking off again this week I was due to have sheep at two markets tomorrow in a bid to playn catch up and finally earn some money this year. Now don't get me wrong, I'm only small-scale compared to many, but even so I now face the very real possibility of losing up to £3000 of income, some of which has already been deferred from sales due to take place in early August.

The announcement that there is a suspect case of foot-and-mouth on a farm near Egham in Surrey has a different feel to some of the previous suspect cases we have seen.

The fact that cattle are to be pre-emptively slaughtered suggests that there are grounds for thinking that really is another case of the disease. Some of the suspect cases last month were not culled as a precuation.

Another strange feature of the case is that is in quite a built up area - although when you look at the map more closely it is in quite close proximity to Great Windsor Park. Given that there are large numbers of deer running around close by could this be a possible source of the disease?

DEFRA has set up a control zone around a new suspect case of foot-and-mouth in Surrey.

This is the news that farmers really didn't want - things are only just getting back to normal. If the case is confirmed and another national movement ban comes into place then it will be a nightmare.

The anger and incredulity that farmers will feel following the publication of the reports detailing the findings of two investigations into the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak is understandable: the blame for the 2007 outbreak lies squarely with the Institute for Animal Health and its tight-fisted sponsors at DEFRA.

While it is evident that a clash of cultures exists between IAH and Merial and the two clearly don’t get along, it is the complacency, under-funding, mis-management and a conflict of interests on DEFRA’s part that explain the cause of the outbreak.

The government was informed four years ago that the site was in a state of dilapidation, and as licensor DEFRA understood the potentially risky nature of the work being performed there. But by allowing a dispute between the IAH and Merial as to who was responsible for the site and its infrastructure to go unresolved it was deferring the cost of investment. But as regulator, it was unacceptably negligent in its responsibility to intervene and resolve this important issue.

The two reports, however, do at least clarify the matter: the site is owned by the IAH and it was the IAH that failed to ensure the contractors it commissioned adhered to basic biosecurity protocols that could have prevented the virus from being spread.

Calls for compensation therefore – especially for those farmers who lost their stock – are understandable.

Posted by Farmers Weekly livestock editor, Jonathan Long

So, a number of biosecurity breaches at the Institute for Animal Health, Pirbright, are to blame for last month’s outbreak of foot-and-mouth in Surrey.

My immediate response is simply “tell us something we didn’t already know”. According to the BBC, the two reports due today highlight five key breaches and outline a possible means for the virus being transferred out of the site, but does that really move things further forward?

Well in all honesty probably not, after all we already knew the Pirbright site was the source of the outbreak and that both the IAH and Merial labs had handled the virus in the weeks prior to the outbreak.

However, in outlining the likely route of transmission, the reports will, undoubtedly, leave many people questioning the quality of the facilities at Pirbright. No one is questioning the quality of the work being done there, but it is obviously being done in outdated poorly maintained buildings.

The Hindu temple at the centre of the Shambo saga - Skanda Vale - has hit the headlines again. Apparently it has had to have two more animals slaughtered because of bovine TB. The Welsh Assembly has also remarked on a "worrying pattern of test results from other cattle in the herd at Skanda Vale".

The temple says that killing the cattle is wrong because the animals are sacred and should be allowed to live out the full natural span of their lives. But what does natural span mean bearing in mind the following quotes on the temple's website:

Bhakti was an elderly jersey bullock. He had arthritis and difficulty walking. We cared for him for many years working with our veterinary surgeon to ensure that he had the necessary medication to manage his condition and that his quality of life was maintained to the highest standards. We would no more consider it acceptable to kill an elderly frail bullock than it would be to kill an elderly frail gentlemen.

Our oldest cow, Gauri, is twenty one years old and Mooki, our oldest bullock, is 15 years old. Gauri’s teeth are worn down because of her age so she is fed a special mix of sugar beet, maize bran and alfalfa grass. Mooki can stand up, but because of arthritis he cannot walk more than a few steps. He is comfortable on one side only, and if he sits down in the wrong position the monks have to turn him over to his more comfortable side. This manoeuvre takes four monks and needs to be done five times a day.

Farming’s a tough industry, full of tough people. You have to be to cope with the ups and downs. Feed wheat at £130/t and foot and mouth, in the same week! Drought stricken crops in April and a deluge in July! Most people would simply give up.

But the great thing about farming is that tough people grapple with tough times and succeed. The only worry is that tough people are getting worn down by people who seem to lack commitment, who have jobs that are 9-5, who invest no personal equity in their occupations. All too often they seem to clash horrifically with the enthusiasts who invest everything in doing the job properly.

Maybe that helps explain the frustration welling up in farmhouses across the land, as the inability of government agencies.......

WHEN dread livestock disease foot and mouth led last Friday’s Ten O’Clock News Farmers Weekly journalists knew it would be no ordinary weekend – not for farmers, not for farming and not for farm journalists either.

For many it was an unwelcome rewind to March 2001 and the devastating foot and mouth epidemic that followed, claiming 7m animals, costing the UK £8bn and forcing many farmers from the industry.

Within half an hour a core team of FW journalists was hard at work, establishing facts and loading information onto the FWi web-site. Our new FWiSpace on-line forum was used to field questions from worried farmers. Journalists chased contacts until well after midnight.

First thing Saturday the team reconvened in FW’s south London newsroom. Newsgathering

Regular readers of this blog will perhaps have noticed the lack of photographs in recent days.

The reason for this is Farmers Weekly's self-imposed ban on going out onto farms because of the foot and mouth outbreak.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Farmers have been saying for some days that there is no need for the media to keep showing 2001 pictures of burning pyres and dead animals being loaded into lorries.

So it's interesting to see Andrew Grant-Adamson saying much the same on his blog.

On the evidence so far, the Government has learned from the disaster of the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease but the media have not. TV reports — the story missed the early editions of the papers that we get in this part of the country — are played out against wallpaper of of the Stygian images of flames and smoke from pyres and carcasses suspended from cranes.

It is like deciding the pictures from a current war are not dramatic enough so we are using some from an earlier one.

In a interlude from this wallpaper in an ITN report we get a brief shot of the the chief vet who says there will be "no pyres, no burning of carcasses". Then it is back to film of pyres and their preparation. It is much the same on other channels.

I've already talked about the statement given to the press by Roger Pride. Here it is in full:

Our business is D. Pride and partners. It was started by my parents Derrick and Sheila about 50 years ago and is now being carried on by myself and my wife Valerie. During that time we have built up what I hope and believe is a well run and respected family business.

The mainstay of our business is buying in store cattle at 6 months and over which we fatten for beef. We finish around 50 cattle a year and the beef is mainly sold through the farm shop.

We check our animals every day and it was when my father Derrick was with the cattle last Thursday that he noticed that some of them were off colour and drooling. He contacted me and asked me to come and have a look. This I did and it was immediately obvious that something was badly wrong. We contacted our vet straight away and he advised us to inform Defra. The Defra vet was on the farm within an hour and a half.

By this time it was late in the evening and getting dark, so the vet asked us to have the cattle penned by 5.30 the next morning for testing. Testing started at 6 am and continued until four in the afternoon. At that time, it was very far from clear that the animals were in fact suffering from FMD.

It was at about 7 that Defra Animal Health phoned to say that the tests were positive. For a moment, we couldn’t believe it. We were just completely shocked and devastated. It felt as if our whole world had been turned upside down.

There were 38 cattle in that group, with another group of 22 in the village and four more back on farm. All three groups were valued and humanely slaughtered on Saturday. Whilst we will be compensated for the market value of the cattle, there are the cleaning and disinfection costs to be resolved and our farming business will be closed down for many months.

You've got to feel for farmer Roger Pride, who is not only dealing with the loss of his cattle herd due to foot-and mouth, he also also had to face the national media.

Mr Pride made his first and only public appearance at a press conference organised by the NFU earlier today and it must have been pretty intimidating. He's had no media training and suddenly he's faced with a bank of cameras and journalists with notebooks at the ready.

It is a situation that I hope other farmers won't have to deal with.

At the stage we don’t know for definite if the current foot-and-mouth outbreak has been caused by the accidental release of the virus from Pirbright or the private lab next door - but it is looking like a strong possibility.

So I find this recent advert seeking a support worker at the Institute of Animal Health (Pirbright), which was dug out by a colleague of mine, pretty scary.

Bearing in mind how important it is to keep stocks of the foot and mouth virus contained you would have thought that only senior, experienced staff would have access to it.

But it looks like people on a salary of just £19,000/yr also get that privilege.

Post by Debbie Beaton:

WAVERLEY Borough Council’s response to the foot and mouth outbreak in Surrey has been quick if my experience in Elstead this weekend is anything to judge by. I was there to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday at Elstead Mill with a large gathering from the village, which has a population of just under 6,000 including the village surrounds

A visit to the Spa shop on Saturday (August 4), which is central to Elstead and situated alongside the central green, had two doubled sided A4 pages on the Foot and Mouth situation compiled by Waverley Borough Council.

The information gave a clear picture on the current situation, describing the reasoning, actions and location of the Protection Zone and 10km Surveillance Zone. Then a Q and A tailored to Elstead residents followed. One of the questions posed was: “I’ve heard there is an outbreak at Elstead. Is this true?” The information sheet affirmed that the herd from the holding near Guildford originally came from Elstead, but that the original herd – although not infected – would be culled.”

It went on to tackle issues relevant to Elstead residents, such as dog walking, footpath access and the Cranleigh Show which went ahead but all the livestock classes were cancelled. The information sheet directed the local community to DEFRA for the most up to date information

Many of the guests at my father’s party live locally. Only a few guests knew that Elstead was at the centre of the foot and mouth outbreak, because this was where the original stock came from and that it was the Pride’s business. The response to the news was genuine shock and disbelief that it could be the Pride's livestock. Not least because many are regular customers of the Prides farm shop in Elstead.

A farmer has written to the Warmwell website (always a good source of information about foot-and-mouth) pointing out that the Pirbright laboratory, now being linked with the outbreak of foot and mouth in Surrey, seems to be moving.

When the news broke on Friday night the concensus seemed to be that the farm and laboratory were about eight miles apart. But 36 hours later the laboratory now seems to be located two or three miles away.

What is interesting - actually make that infuriating - about this new foot-and-mouth outbreak is how a procession of 'experts' are being wheeled out to claim that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for intensive farming.

This makes me angry for a number of reasons. For a start, these people seem to tar the whole UK industry with a brush that frankly I don't think exists. OK, I admit the poultry industry can get pretty 'intensive' but how do you apply that description to a field full of suckler cows or even a spacious shed full of beef cattle?

The livestock industry may have moved on from the days when you had 20 cows and a pig at the bottom of the garden. But some people seem convinced that farmers have embraced the dark side when it comes to animal husbandry. As someone who works in the industry and regularly visits farms, I suggest that it is mostly fantasy.

The second point that irritates me is the suggestion that foot-and-mouth wouldn't happen in more extensive systems. An infectious disease is an infectious disease. Animals aren't protected from it because they are reared with a bit more space. Have these people forgotten that the worst affected county in 2001 was Cumbria - a place of rolling hills and sheep grazing over vast tracts of land.

I can accept that livestock movements - of which there are certainly far more than there were 50 years ago - do make disease control much more difficult. But the rest, as far as I can see, is rubbish.

There's no avoiding the horrible truth. Foot-and-mouth disease is back in the UK.

As you might expect Farmers Weekly readers are telling us they are shocked and disappointed. But they are completely supportive of the movement standtill put in place by DEFRA and feel that, this time, the government is acting fast and appropriately.

What the industry is praying for is that the case in Surrey is an isolated one - although, of course, that then raises questions about how the hell it got there. There are no swill users to blame this time around...

The fact it is in cattle, rather than pigs and sheep, is a good sign. The disease can be difficult to pick up in sheep and is a problem in pigs because they emit the disease more readily than other species.

It's true. As is being widely reported pretty much everywhere, Foot & Mouth is back on a farm near Guildford.

The latest news on the Foot & Mouth outbreak in Surrey is available in the news section.

There are a couple of discussions on the FWispace as well.

There's plenty being written about what is going to happen following the ISG's report into the effectiveness of badger culling but this is about the most sensible comment I have seen so far:

The single most important thing to come out of the RBCT dispersal trials is that the transmission of bTb from badgers to cattle appears at last to be accepted. That John Bourne has very effectively illustrated how not to cull the badgers responsible, is the point from which the debate must move on.

It comes from the Bovine TB blog, which I have mentioned before, but is well worth a look as it is written by a group of farmers all grappling with the disease in their herds.

Posted by Poultry World editor, Richard Allison

The latest case of the low pathogenic H7N2 avian flu on a farm near St Helens, Lancashire, highlights the need for vigilance by poultry keepers when buying birds at markets.

Government vets have confirmed that the infected birds were purchased from the same market on the same day (7 May) as birds involved in the Welsh outbreak in May.

While the poultry industry breathes a sigh of relief that it's the low pathogenic virus, just image if it was the high pathogenic H5N1 strain. The virus would have spread over north Wales and northern England.

Posted by Poultry World Editor Richard Allison

I watched the BBC's "Whistleblower" TV programme last night where an undercover BBC journalist claimed to have uncovered food hygiene failings in two of the major retailers.

In the middle of the programme, came a piece on a broiler farm supplying one of the supermarkets featured and I thought, here we go again. Another token poultry unit to make the programme sexier to viewers.

However, if what was shown was true, I am alarmed at the lapses in biosecurity.

By Andrew Shirley, Farmers Weekly Business Editor

And so it's announced that six more ADAS research units are to be sold off by landlord DEFRA.

Part of the explanation was that, with farming in the doldrums, ADAS's research and development revenues were falling and running the farms was becoming a burden to the organisation.

Forgive me for seeming naive, but isn't it now, when farmers are struggling to make a living, that we need more, not less research?

DEFRA's latest statement on the Norfolk avian flu outbreak saying that it believes the outbreak "is exclusively a Bernard Matthews Holton problem" brings mixed blessings to the sector.

For Bernard Matthews, it's yet more negative news. You can't help feel sorry for the company that defied the powerful supermarkets and retained its own "bootiful" brand while competitors gave in and switched to selling products under the supermarket's own brands. But the irony is that the Bernard Matthews brand may prove to be its downfall, as consumers associate it with the outbreak.

In contrast, for free range producers, the DEFRA statement that "there is no evidence of H5N1 anywhere in the wild bird population" comes as a relief. The fear was that the virus had established itself here on British soil in the wild bird population, putting many flocks at risk.

But don't start celebrating yet, this month sees the start of the spring migration. Let's hope we see no more of this virus this year.

Just found this bovine TB blog and thought it looked really interesting. Seems to be written by six farmers from across the country.

The poultry industry is putting great effort into reaching out to consumers to reassure them that poultry meat and eggs are safe to eat. We’ve seen several poultry farmers on the TV and it’s a credit to them that they are prepared to face the media.

But their hard work is being partially undone by the government’s mixed messages.

We have the Food Standards Agency reiterating its advice that poultry meat and eggs are safe to eat, posing no risk to human health.

It explained that even if virus is present in meat or eggs, several factors will contribute to preventing or limiting its effects on people. First, the virus is easily killed by cooking. Second, even if it is still present after cooking, the virus is destroyed by saliva and by gastric acid. And there are very few receptors in the gut that allows the virus to enter the body.

But then you had the chief scientist David King saying that he couldn’t rule out having to withdraw turkey products from supermarket shelves as a precautionary measure if they found that contaminated meat had found its way into the food chain.

The result is a mixed message. It’s this inconsistency that puts doubts in consumer minds at a time that they need reassurance and leadership from a joined-up government.

Boris Johnson is on typically good form on his blog, defending good old Bernard Matthews and his turkeys. Have a read! Brings a smile to a Friday morning.

The following post is written by Richard Allison, editor of Farmers Weekly's sister magazine Poultry World:

“It’s a poultry problem, not a people problem.” That’s how an expert summed up the situation during a TV interview, after being asked: “should the public be worried by the avian flu outbreak.”

But judging by the media coverage, we are at risk of seeing an outbreak of consumer panic. And like the flu, it’s highly contagious.

The consequence of consumer panic is greater than the disease itself. So it’s up to poultry producers to reassure people not to panic and stop eating poultry by dispelling the myths.

People need the facts so that they can make an informed decision. It doesn’t help when you watch news reader after news reader use the phrase: “This is the same strain that has killed 160 people.” And then fail to put this into context.

The following post is written by Richard Allison, editor of Farmers Weekly's sister magazine Poultry World:

Wander down any high street in the UK and ask shoppers to name a poultry company, the most likely reply will be Bernard Matthews followed by “bootiful.” It is one of the biggest success stories of the poultry industry with its wholesome, family image.

The company has single-handedly transformed turkey into an everyday dish, not just something for Christmas.

Also unique is the fact that Bernard Matthews has maintained its own brand over the years while many others have disappeared, being replaced by supermarket own labels.

However, will the brand survive the avian flu outbreak? It raises the fear that the brand will be permanently damaged.