Angry exchange on British pork prices

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Retailers and pork producers in Britain have been exchanging angry words over pork pricing.

In early March, Andrew Opie, the director of food for the British Retail Consortium, complained in a letter to TheGrocer online magazine, that retailers "are an easy target" for pig producer protests. "Supermarkets don't pay producers directly for pork" and making pork more expensive in stores "will just cause customers to buy less, the exact opposite of what farmers want," he said.

Stewart Houston, chair of the British Pork Executive (BPEX), replied to the same magazine that a BPEX report showed that retailers were making £16 million a week selling pork and pork products, "profitable processors" made £8 million and farmers were losing £3 million.

Houston charged that retailers have recently been importing greatly increased volumes of cheap pork produced to lower welfare standards than currently apply in Britain.

The reason behind the angry words, and the protests, is the feed pricing crisis in Britain. BP