The National Pig Association (NPA) has announced that major retailers have responded to a letter urging them to prioritise British pork over EU product.
The letter was sent by NPA chairman Rob Mutimer a few weeks ago. According to NPA, the response has generally consisted of retailers seeking to reassure the pig sector that they are backing the industry, with continued commitments to British pork and ongoing efforts to address the labour shortage across the supply chain and to ease the pig backlog.
In the letter, Mutimer called on retailers to help resolve the pig backlog by not turning to cheaper EU pork, particularly where it diverts essential butchery staff away from UK product.
NPA said that falling EU prices have made imported pork more attractive to retailers, and official government trade data suggests UK pork import volumes have been increasing since the summer, after being below 2020 levels in the first part of the year.
Responses from retailers include:
Aldi said that it “was fully committed to continuing to back British farming and British farmers all year round, despite ongoing cost challenges and increased price competitiveness within the market.”
Asda has “highlighted British pork product to help drive awareness and consumption with [its] customers.”
Co-op reassured NPA of its commitment to British farmers, farming and food. The company restated that “ALL of the Co-op Pork supply chain is 100% British.”
Lidl said it had “no plans” to change its current suppliers of its everyday listed fresh pork from British farmers.
Morrisons said that the company is “100% British on fresh pork and this will not change.”
M&S noted that the company would “continue to work with [its] supply base to try and find innovative solutions to the current industry challenges.”
Sainsbury’s said that “it is committed to supporting British pork, with 100% of [its] fresh pork being British, which [it has] upheld since 2013.”
Tesco is “working closely with [its] suppliers to ensure that British product is being processed to the maximum capacity in the abattoirs.” The company added that “removing EU pigmeat from shelves will not result in more British pigs being processed to help clear the backlog on farms. Only the processors finding more butchers will achieve this.”
Waitrose stated that it is “generally a strong supporter of British pork”, and that it “appreciates the challenging situation the sector is in” and has offered to speak to NPA directly.
“Nowhere near being out of the woods”
Mutimer said: “Despite the government’s welcome support package for the pig sector, we are nowhere near to being out of the woods. In fact, we remain deep in crisis, with thousands of pigs backed up on farms and pig farmers still seeing no improvement.
“With farmers also facing an unprecedented financial crisis, the support of retailers the entire supply chain and of the British public will be critical to the survival of the British pig sector.
“We will continue to monitor the level of British pork in supermarkets closely to ensure the retailers keep to their commitments.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
