Horse and pig meat has been found in so-called “beef” burgers sold in Britain and Ireland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rHL34vY1Hg

Video: Horse and pig meat found in British “beef” burgers (2.09).

Is this a problem? Certainly not!

The people of Britain, Ireland (and Australia) ought to get over their hang-up about eating horse meat. If we can eat cows, then we can eat horses. And why stop there? If we can eat pigs and lambs, then we can eat dogs and cats.

Surely, if farm animals exist for our culinary benefit, then horses, dogs, cats and others should also “step up to the plate” when required.

With our rapidly growing population, those animals should accept that they will be required to help out sooner, rather than later. After all, they’re very popular components of the diet in many other countries.

Tesco: one of the supermarket chains with horse and pig meat in “beef” burgers

Something else that should allay consumers’ concerns is this assurance from a long-term Tesco customer:

Video: No side-effects from Tesco’s burgers (0.20)

Blog Author: Paul Mahony (Also on Twitter & Slideshare)

Image: Tesco Metro store. © Clearvista | Dreamstime.com

Note: First video link replaced on 13th Feb, 2013 after the original version was removed from Youtube.

One of Australia’s leading supermarket chains, Coles, has been running a major advertising campaign highlighting the fact that its “Coles Brand” fresh pork and local and imported ham and bacon products are now sow stall free.

Here’s celebrity chef Curtis Stone with Coles’ Head of Responsible Sourcing and Quality, Jackie Healing, discussing the firm’s recent initiatives:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af1MqQGW61U&feature=player_embedded

Some extracts:

Curtis Stone: So now that we’ve changed the production of pork, what does that actually mean for the customer?

Jackie Healing: Well, it means they can buy great quality pork and they can be confident that the animals used to make that pork have been treated properly. It’s really important to treat the animals with respect.

Unfortunately, the act of removing sow stalls will not, on its own, guarantee a good outcome for pigs.

Going back to Jackie Healing’s comment, let’s consider the question of respect.

Is it respectful to:

• confine an animal indoors for her entire life, in a continual cycle of pregnancy and birth?
• confine her in a farrowing crate (which is even more restrictive than a sow stall) for twenty-four hours per day for up to six weeks on end?
• cart her off to the slaughterhouse when she can no longer become pregnant?
• kill pigs for food between four and twelve months of age, when they would otherwise live for around ten years?
• cut an animal’s tail off without pain relief in the first few days of life?
• cut large pieces out of the animal’s ears without pain relief?
• clip his or her teeth to the gum line without pain relief?
• castrate him without pain relief?[i]

Some of those horrors occur in traditional farming, so the cruelty is not limited to the “factory” variety.

Image: Pigs awaiting slaughter, Melbourne, Australia, January, 2013

Has factory farming ended?

Contrary to what campaigning group Care2 recently reported, the move by Coles on sow stalls does not mean an end to the factory farming of pigs among Coles’ suppliers. Sow stalls are only one aspect of factory farming, and even Coles is allowing them to be used for up to 24 hours per pregnancy.

Similarly, this video from Mercy for Animals indicates that sow stalls have been banned in Australia. That is incorrect. A partial, voluntary ban by producer-owned Australian Pork Ltd (APL) will be phased in by 2017, but there is no legislative ban. The APL ban will still allow for up to 11 days of confinement, and is not binding on individual producers.

A partial legislative ban to be  introduced in Tasmania will allow sow stalls to be used for up to 10 days after mating. This will occur despite the Tasmanian government previously announcing that it would introduce a 6 week limit on sow stalls in 2014, and then ban them altogether by 2017.

Even to the extent that the conditions and treatment of pigs may improve as a result of Coles’ initiative, the appropriate inspection regime is critical. Pigs were let down horrifically in that regard in the cases of (for example) Oliver’s Piggery and Wally’s Piggery. At the time of the Oliver’s investigation, the piggery was supplying 20 percent of the fresh pork sold by Coles’ major competitor, Woolworths, in Tasmania.

Do Coles’ customers really understand how pigs are treated?

Rather than a desire on its own part to reduce suffering, Coles says the initiative to remove sow stalls “is a response to demand from our customers for more responsibly sourced products”.

Accordingly, it would be helpful to know the extent to which Coles’ customers are aware of other forms of cruelty that are legally and routinely imposed on the pigs they eat. In focus group sessions and other forms of interaction with customers, has Coles informed them that (for example) piglets are routinely mutilated without pain relief and that sows may still live their entire lives indoors?

If Coles’ customers want to avoid cruelty, then more action is required

ABC Radio National’s  Bush Telegraph program, together with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, presented the inaugural “AgTalks” event in Melbourne on 22nd November, 2012.

A live panel discussion and audience Q&A considered the notion: “Australians don’t care where their food comes from, as long as it’s cheap and looks good”.

The panel included John Durkan, Merchandise Director of Coles.

The event was broadcast on Monday, 26 November, 2012. You can see details of the program, and hear the podcast, here.

Question to John Durkan, Coles from Paul Mahony, Melbourne Pig Save:

In terms of animal cruelty, do you think your customers are aware  . . . of the legalised cruelty that still exists in terms of mutilation of piglets, for example, without anaesthetic? That is tail docking, ear notching, teeth clipping, castration, etc., and should consumers be made aware of those sorts of things to help their [purchasing] choices?

Response from John Durkan:

It’s quite a deep and broad issue, so do consumers think that deeply and broadly about it? . . . We get no information back to say that they do. What they do want to know is that there is no cruelty to animals, that they’re treated well, they are grown in the right conditions, and exactly what we’re doing with sow stalls and free range and not selling caged eggs is for the very reason that consumers tell us that they want to move in this direction.

If, as John Durkan says, customers “want to know that there is no cruelty to animals, that they’re treated well, they are grown in the right conditions”, then why is legalised cruelty still occurring routinely?

As reported in an earlier blog post, animal food production is exempt from cruelty laws in relation to many routine practices.

Image showing some of the joys of a farrowing crate. Credit: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals with Igualdad Animal / Animal Equality

How to avoid cruelty

The only way to avoid treating animals cruelly is to stop using them in food and other products.

If you haven’t already adopted that approach, why not think about it? You have the power to fundamentally improve the lives of animals who are deprived of that power themselves.

How do you go about it?

Vegan Easy is a great place to start, including recipes, information and inspirational stories.

Best of luck on an enlightening journey!

Blog Author

Paul Mahony (Also on Twitter & Slideshare)

Update

Various edits on 2 October 2017

“If every Australian got to see inside a factory farm, there would soon be no factory farms.” Emma Haswell, Brightside Farm Sanctuary

Emma Haswell of Brightside Farm Sanctuary and Diana Simpson entered the premises of Oliver’s Piggery in Winnaleah, Tasmania on a Saturday night in early 2009. They discovered horrific conditions. Here are some extracts from a report in the Tasmanian Times of 1st October, 2009:

• The three animals over which the owner was prosecuted were destroyed by a vet soon after police arrived at the property.
• The sows were extremely emaciated, and unwilling or unable to stand.
• Two had festering ulcers up to 12 centimetres in diameter, and one of that pair was unable to move because her snout was stuck under the bar of a mesh divider.
• She could not get to food or water and her wounds were flyblown with adult and juvenile maggots.
• The court was also told that layers of faeces were deposited in group pig pens. Mr Oliver admitted the pens hadn’t been cleaned for two months.
• Mr Oliver’s pigs had one visit per year from a vet, based in South Australia.
• Police found that more than 70 per cent of the 46 sows in farrowing stalls had pressure sores on their sides needing treatment.

Without the involvement of Emma and Diana, would we have known about the horrors within Oliver’s Piggery? Let’s consider some of the facts (which are expanded on below):

• Just three months before their visit, the piggery was inspected by a quality auditor. According to presenter Liam Bartlett in Channel 9’s “60 Minutes” episode “The Hidden Truth“, the auditor gave the piggery “the all-clear”. He says it was only a clerical error by Mr Oliver that prevented the piggery from being accredited by Australian Pork Ltd (APL) at the time of the evening raid.
• A shareholder and director of the company operating the piggery was also a director of Australian Pork Ltd.
• Gary Oliver, had been featured in a brochure for Woolworths supermarkets as one of its “fresh food people”.
• The RSPCA refused to inspect the premises after being informed of the horrendous conditions.

Here are some extracts from the trial:

• Defence Lawyer: “What has in fact happened is that an animal activist has entered the farm without any invitation from Mr Oliver or the family and that is a concern.”
• Magistrate: “Is that how the report was made?”
• Defence Lawyer: “I understand that is how it was made, Your Honour.”
• Magistrate: “It might well have turned out to be in the public interest  . . . if that is the cost of intensive farming, that animals will be neglected and get to the sort of situation that these animals were in, then I would have thought that the community would expect that intensive farming would not be a viable option in our society.”

Gary Oliver pleaded guilty to animal cruelty. He was fined $2,500 and his company $10,000.

At the time the video was recorded, Mr Oliver was appearing in brochures as one of Woolworths “fresh food people”. The business had been supplying Woolworths for ten years, and at the time of the video was supplying 20% of the fresh pork sold in their Tasmanian supermarkets.

So who is looking out for the pigs? Let’s consider the roles of the RSPCA and APL.

RSPCA

The RSPCA’s hands are tied to a large extent by the fact that animal food production is exempt from cruelty laws in relation to many routine practices. In respect of pigs, those practices include mutilations, without pain relief, that are illegal in respect of domestic pets. Here are some examples of what’s permitted:

• cutting off the tail
• cutting large pieces out of the ears
• clipping teeth almost to the gum line
• castration
• lifelong confinement indoors

However, the poor regulatory approach to pigs and other food-production animals would not seem to explain why the RSPCA refused to inspect Oliver’s Piggery when approached by Emma with evidence of cruelty beyond what was permitted at law. Here’s an extract from ABC TV’s Stateline program of 8th May, 2009:

“The chief executive of the RSPCA, Greg Tredinnick, refused to do an interview. Stateline asked Mr Tredinnick if he had said to Ms Haswell that they didn’t really operate on weekends, and he answered, ‘Yes, something along those lines . . . We don’t run a 24-hour a day service.’”

When the RSPCA refused to become involved, Emma approached the police. They inspected the premises and laid charges.

Although seemingly unrelated to the Oliver’s Piggery matter, is it appropriate that the RSPCA receives royalties equal to 2% of sales from food producers in exchange for its “Paw of Approval” accreditation?

This is what Animal Liberation Victoria (ALV) says on its “RSPCA Watchdog” page:

“The RSPCA is not there for ‘all creatures great and small’ when they enter into financial business arrangements with the very industry that breeds, confines, mutilates and brutally kills animals. The RSPCA’s ‘Paw of Approval’ scheme is an absolute betrayal to the defenceless animals in dire need of their help. The animals are suffering while the public (who trust the RSPCA to help and save animals) is deceived.”

On 9th January, 2009, The Age newspaper reported, “Free-range farmers are urging the consumer watchdog to investigate the RSPCA’s standards for pork products sold in supermarkets, warning the RSPCA logo dupes consumers into thinking they are buying free-range.”

Much good work of the RSPCA and its personnel may be offset to some extent by the issues referred to by ALV and The Age. It may be unwise for the RSPCA to enter into commercial arrangements with a business sector in which cruel practices are inherent and widespread.

Australian Pork Ltd

Australian Pork Ltd is an industry body owned by pig producers. Under a Federal Act of Parliament, it is the declared national industry service provider for the industry. It administers the quality accreditation scheme relating to food safety, biosecurity and animal welfare.

Producers who are in the industry to earn profits own the body that is responsible for monitoring their operations in terms of product quality and animal welfare.

Here’s a comment from presenter Liam Bartlett of “60 Minutes”:

“It turns out that a shareholder and director of the company operating that filthy piggery is Dr Ian Parish, who also sits on the board running the pork industry.”

Here are some further comments from 60 Minutes in relation to APL and Woolworths: “Michael Batyski, Woolworths Fresh Food Manager, says he relied on standards, administered by Australian Pork Limited, that are supposed to certify producers and maintain quality. Woolies says the piggery was inspected and recommended for re-accreditation just three months before Emma’s incriminating video.”

APL seems to believe that the un-edited version of the 60 Minutes interview presents them in a better light than the version that appeared on the program. That’s debatable, but you can make up your own mind by viewing it here (in eight parts of between six and nine minutes each).

Conclusion

A very unfortunate aspect of the Oliver’s Piggery case is that it has not been an isolated incident. Subsequent cases will be covered in future blog posts.

Animals are in no position to stand up for themselves. The best way to prevent acts of cruelty such as those that occurred in this instance is to avoid consuming animal products.

Blog Author: Paul Mahony