British take Irish pork products off the shelves
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Monday December 08 2008
Supermarkets across England, Scotland and Wales have withdrawn from sale "the very small proportion'' of Irish pork they stock, the British Retail Consortium said yesterday.
A spokesman for the industry body said 80pc of fresh pork joints sold in mainland Britain are produced there, and that the majority of imports come from Holland and Denmark.
He said: "British retailers are working very closely with the Food Standards Agency and, as instructed by them, have withdrawn the small proportion of fresh Irish pork they sell.''
The Food Standards Agency has advised consumers not to eat pork or pork products which are labelled as being from the Republic or Northern Ireland.
Ireland exported €368m worth of pigmeat in 2007, half of it to Britain, but a spokesman for the FSA said it did not believe there was any "significant" risk.
It said: "From the information that we have at this time, we do not believe there is significant risk to UK consumers as adverse health effects from eating the affected products are only likely if people are exposed to relatively-high levels of this contaminant for long periods.''
"People shouldn't be too concerned," an FSA spokesman said. "It's not an immediate toxic risk. With dioxins it's a problem when you have exposure at high levels over a long period of time. We are only talking about a problem since September."
He said the FSA was waiting for information from Irish authorities about the UK end destinations of Irish pork products and would then "identify if any specific action is required".
Tesco said it had checked the origin of all the meats in its supermarkets and sells no fresh Irish pork.
A spokesman said: "The majority of our pork comes from the UK. We have excellent traceability and we began checking all our products as a matter of urgency.
"We have no Irish fresh pork on sale. If we find it is contained in any of our other products we will of course take immediate action to remove it from shelves and will follow FSA guidelines on any additional action needed.''
Investigating
A spokeswoman for Marks and Spencer said: "We do not source any fresh pork from Ireland. We are still investigating and working with the FSA.''
A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's said: "We do not use any Irish pork in our fresh pork, bacon or sausage ranges. We do not believe it is contained in any other food product but we are investigating further and if any product is found to contain Irish pork, we will take immediate action to remove it from sale.''
Waitrose has withdrawn two lines of sausages sold under Northern Irish celebrity chef Paul Rankin's brand as a precaution, although a spokeswoman for the supermarket stressed that the origin of the meat was still being checked.
Waitrose said in a statement: "All Waitrose fresh pork is 100pc British, sourced from farms in East Anglia and southern England."
- Laura May
