Poor animal welfare meat imports bugging UK

 

 

At least one quarter of meat on sales in the UK comes from foreign farms that do not meet British standards for animal welfare.

 

The imported meat came from animals kept in cages, and pigs underwent physical castration without anaesthetic.

 

While the UK has relatively high animal welfare standards, there are no restrictions on importing meat from countries that do not impose the same standards and where costs are often lower. As a result, consumer and farming groups are calling out for better labelling of products and to bring standards into line across the EU.

 

Consumers are likely to think that all the standards are the same when it is not, and British farmers want to be able to compete fairly, said Kevin Pearce, head of food and farming at the National Farmers Union (NFU).

 

An analysis of the most recent full-trade figures available for 2007 revealed the following:

 

• More than half of bacon sold in the UK comes from the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Italy, where farmers can keep sows in smaller pens and for longer periods.

 

• 43% of other pork products come from Denmark, Germany the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, where the same poorer conditions on pig farms are allowed.

 

• One quarter of poultry sold in the UK comes from seven European countries and Brazil, which allow higher stocking of chickens and do not force farmers to use more comfortable dry bedding.

 

• 3% of beef is imported from Brazil, where practices including hot branding, castration and dehorning of cattle can be carried out without anaesthetic.

 

Products from those major importers accounted for about one quarter of all meat sold, by weight, in the UK that year. Total imports of pork, poultry, beef and veal made up one third of all meat sales, and it is likely that some of the remaining imports came from smaller trading countries also with lower standards.