13 June 2011

The Banner Blitz campaign, organised by the National Pig Association (NPA), is still running, with the aim of raising support for British Pig farmers. Defra chief Caroline Spelman and NFU president Peter Kendall both gave their support to the campaign last month, when it stepped-up its efforts, distributing banners and car-stickers in support of British producers.

In France, the Cooperl cooperative blamed soaring raw material prices and distorted competition with Germany for its recent fall in revenue. The fall saw the company’s turnover fall for the second consecutive year.

Emmanuel Commault, director general of the 2,000 member cooperative, said, “We suffer from ‘social dumping’ by groups like Toen-Fleish, from Germany, who pay their foreign employees three times less, which allows them to sell the pieces of pork cheaper in Europe.”

The company is a member of the ‘Anti-Dumping Committee,’ aimed at eradicating intra-European distortions; the committee filed a complaint about the practice to the European Commission in Brussels in January. However, French pork industry representatives said that the damage has been done and the industry is in crisis, having lost 40 million Euros in 2010, restructuring in slaughter houses seems inevitable.