Pig producers call off protest
01 September 1998
Pig producers call off protest
By FWi staff
PIG farmers have cancelled a demonstration outside a meat cutting plant after the company involved gave assurances that much of its imported pigmeat is produced in Europe to UK standards.
Protesters were to have targeted Tulip International in Thetford, Norfolk this Thursday. Pigmeat processed by Tulip International is sold under the Danepak brandname.
The protest was called off after Tulip officials wrote to the British Pig Association explaining how their pigmeat was reared.
The officials stated that imported supplies of Tulip pigmeat had been free of meat and bonemeal since last April. Meat and bonemeal was banned in the UK in the wake of the BSE crisis.
Tulip officials also said that the whole of the Tulip range of cooked hams and vacuum-packed pigmeat was sourced from stall-and-tether-free pigs. Sow stalls will be banned in the UK from next January.
“In the light of that information, I thought we were in danger of having egg on our face,” said Ian Campbell, regional coordinator of the British Pig Industry Support Group, who helped plan the protest.
Another protest timetabled for Thursday outside a meat cutting plant in Scunthorpe will go ahead as planned.