Foreign pork in patriotic packs misleads shoppers, say farmers

PORK sold to raise money for British “heroes” is often from abroad, it emerged yesterday.

Red Lion Foods, which has taken a big share of the budget foods market by promising to donate all profits to forces charities, admitted there was no guarantee that any of its other raw materials were all-British.

The admissions were forced by a pig farmer who got a call from a friend who had read the small print on Red Lion pork mince on sale in a Tesco store with a sticker saying Help Our Heroes. The farmer posted a complaint on the National Pig Association website and the Yorkshire Post checked it out.

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Hull-based Cranswick Foods is the contractor which supplies Red Lion pork products, including chops, sausages and bacon. Cranswick also processes and packages pork for other brands and some do specify British meat. But Red Lion does not.

A typical package, of Red Lion sliced ham, says “Support UK Forces” on the front. On the back, it says: “Cooked and packed in the UK using pork from EU and South America.”

Cranswick chief executive Bernard Hoggarth said the wide-ranging sourcing attribution was “to give us flexibility”.

He said: “We do buy British when we can but when a product is on promotion we cannot always get the supplies.”

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But the general manager of the National Pig Association, Barney Kay, said: “They can get it if they want it and any extra cost would be very little. But it is all about price. I am not knocking Cranswick, who are doing a job they have been asked to do. But I have had enough of Red Lion Foods getting the halo effect from patriotic branding which would lead 99 percent of their customers to assume they are buying British pork.

“They are effectively saying ‘Support the British soldier but never mind the British farmer’ and it has gone on long enough. We raised this matter with the retailers a couple of months ago and were told it would be looked into but nothing has changed.”

The founder of Red Lion, Andrew Gidden, now managing director, disagreed that his business was creating false expectations. He said he preferred to buy British but did not insist on it.

Mr Gidden, a former sales director of John West Foods, said: “I did a lot of research in Yorkshire, as it happens, going around supermarkets asking shoppers whether we should be exclusively British and about 20 percent said Yes. The rest said we have fought alongside Americans and we have people from all over in our forces and our families and we just want best value for money. Our mission is to give them that so we can raise as much money for these charities as possible.”

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Red Lion produces corned beef, chicken meals, tinned foods, tea, coffee, butter, milk and cheese, as well as the pork range. It claims to share all profits after tax between a list of charities including the Royal British Legion, the Gurkha Welfare Trust and Help For Heroes, which was set up on behalf of soldiers returning injured from Afghanistan and Iraq and has made a big impact on public consciousness.

In less than a year, Red Lion has handed over more than £400,000. It is coming up to one year old and its turnover figures have yet to be revealed.

A press officer for Help For Heroes said: “This is not something we would comment on. The money donated has contributed towards support for servicemen and women and that is our priority.”

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