Is Waitrose Berkshire pork what it claims to be?
14 02 2008
Waitrose is among the supermarkets that are muscling in on the traditional breed, pedigree pork market with what they claim is Berkshire pork.
In December, Waitrose, Dalehead Foods and BQP farmer George Gittus were awarded the Quality Food & Drink Award for Fresh Meat, Game and Poultry for their Waitrose Berkshire Free Range Pork Rack.
BQP’s Divisional Director Andrew Saunders even claimed to be proud to have reintroduced a traditional pig breed like the Berkshire back into the UK retail market.
It’s a load of rubbish.
What’s happened is that Waitrose, like the other supermarket chains, has spotted a niche market developing and are muscling in on it.
Increasing numbers of people want to buy pork from extensively reared traditional breeds for the taste, to support rare breeds and, often, because of higher welfare standards than intensively reared pigs.
The market for traditional pork is largely met by small to medium sized farmers and smallholders, who supply their pork direct to the customer or to butchers and retailers accredited through the likes of the British Pig Association’s Pedgree Pork Scheme and/or the Traditional Breeds Meat Marketing Company.
When consumers buy pork from named pedigree rare breeds in this way, they can be very confident they’re getting exactly that — rare breed, pedigree pork.
However, the loose and lax application of the law means that the big producers and the supermarkets can call their pork products by similar names, even if they are not genuine rare breed pedigree pork.
In Waitrose’s case, the supermarket sources pork from British Quality Pigs, one of the largest producers of pork in the UK—if not the largest—and a subsidiary of Tulip UK/Danish Crown.
BQP farmer George Dittus has switched from using Hampshire semen on, I believe, Duroc sows to using imported Canadian Berkshire semen on the same sows.
No, they’re not even using British Berkshires as sires, so it does nothing to help preserve Berkshires in the UK.
The resulting offspring are reddish-brown with black spots and look nothing like pure-bred Berkshires, but the law allows the supermarkets to call them Berkshires as the sires are Berkshires.
It’s been happening for some time with beef - most of the so-called Aberdeen Angus and Hereford beef sold in the supermarkets is actually cross-breed meat, too.
Dairy cows are artificially inseminated with Aberdeen Angus or Hereford semen, and meat from the resulting off-spring is passed off as Aberdeen Angus or Hereford meat.
It’s not, and there is huge difference in quality and taste between that and the real thing. It’s the same with pigs and pork.
Theoretically, pork from named rare breeds can be protected by Traditional Speciality Guarantee status in Europe, but it’s a long and costly process to get this.
The Gloucestershire Old Spots Pig Breeders Club has been working to get TSG status for Old Spots for a few years now and is actively campaigning against Waitrose’s marketing exercise.
However, I’m not entirely sure what the Berkshire Pig Breeders Club is planning to do — despite being a member.
There’s nothing on the website and all I know from the club newsletters is that meeting have been proposed and some concern was expressed at the Royal Show.
And don’t forget the other rare breeds either — Tamworths, Oxford Sandy and Blacks, Large Blacks, Middle Whites, Saddlebacks, Welsh etc.
All are vulnerable to exploitation and passing off so long as their status is not explicitly protected and it’s up to the breeders to initiate and pay for the process.
I’d like to see the Scottish Executive and the UK Parliament do much more to prevent this sort of dodgy practice—whether for pork, beef, lamb, mutton or poultry—but there’s little chance of anything happening given the power of the supermarkets and the major commercial producers.
Failing that, all we small-scale producers can do is try to educate the public and urge them to read the small print on meat packaging carefully, to only buy the genuine article (look for Pedigree Pork or a Traditional Breeds accredited butcher) and to complain to everyone you can (MSPs, MPs, the media, on forums and websites, even to the supermarkets).
The only way to preserve and foster rare traditional breeds is to buy meat that comes from the genuine article.
Waitrose’s alleged Berkshire pork is not the real thing, so don’t buy it. Please.
I have been trying to tell my mother this for while, but she believe all the media hype!
I forgot to mention there’s a good thread on the River Cottage forums discussing this.
Bit like Cheddar Cheese, none of which comes from Cheddar anymore. UK Gov. sell out every time and does nothing to protect small farmers. That sort of mentality rolls through everything so would there be support for the Clubs if they put forward a proper registration and certification proposal. Sadly I doubt it.
The French don’t allow it, think Champagne and the AOC for cheeses here. How long before ‘Berkshire’ pigs are just pigs raised in Berkshire??
I think this somewhat proves the point that the simple process of feeding yourself and family really good food is constantly being undermined by hype.
My heart sinks every time I see a supermarket trolley loaded with “be good to yourself” or whatever the brand is in other supermarkets. People genuinely believe they are feeding their families the very best when, in reality, it is still processed rubbish, just dearer.
The same is now happening to breeds, or should I say, brands of livestock.
it won’t be too long before breeds are eradicated as food stock, merely kept on quaint “historical” farms for tourists and schoolchildren to gawp at.
Also, Waitrose’s Royal Berkshire range of pork products has nothing to do with the Berkshire breed whatsover. It’s simply a brand. Royal Berkshire Pork products are made with meat from Hampshire and Large White pigs.
So when Waitrose markets “Royal Berkshire Free Range Dry Cured Back Bacon“, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a Berkshire pig product.
Im really shocked at this. Normally Waitrose is the only supermarket with any semblance of morals/decent treatment of suppliers/lack of deceit.
I will be writing to them expressing my disgust and disappointment….
Heres what Ive put in my compaint to Waitrose……
am writing to complain about Waitrose’s policy in respect of your description of ‘Berkshire’ pork
As I understand it, the pork you are selling as Berkshire pork is in fact half Berkshire and half Duroc.
Whilst this may be currently legal, I feel it is blantantly misleading to consumers, since the meat from a pure Berkshire is far superior to a Duroc cross so people buying the meat will not be experiencing what berkshire meat tastes like , and nor are you doing anything to accurately represent or promote this rare pure breed. And even the Berkshire element is Canadian and not British despite the fact that the Berkshire pig is a British breed!!
I am really surprised and shocked at Waitrose - I have always paid the extra it takes to shop with you since you are the only supermarket I felt I could rely on not to just do the legal bare minimum no matter how misleading to consumers or damaging to UK farmers, but in this case i think you have fallen way into that practice . I believe the current policy is a big mistake and would really ask you to reconsider it. After all, if I bred a cross between a Doberman and a Yorkshire Terrier, I could not describe it as a Yorkie, could I???
I would be grateful if you could consider this complaint. With the new transport regs, massive increases in feed and bedding prices and constant disease crises, small producers of rare breeds deserve better than to have cross breeds of their breeds passed off as the real thing. Its not, and you should not be presenting it as such.
I’ve been tipped off to a Waitrose presentation to the World Pork Congress. In the presentation, Waitrose’s Head of Buying, Heather Jenkins, refers to: “Berkshire Free Range - sows sired by Berkshire boar, kept outdoors and progeny finished outdoors”.
Needless to say, the presentation doesn’t show the resulting crosses. Instead, it shows a photo of what looks like a pure-bred Berkshire boar.
They can’t be Berkshires if they’re cross-breeds can they? Well, they can be if you’re a supermarket.
Oh, and the same presentation refers to the Waitrose consumer as being ethically minded, provenance lovers, and traditionalists. How will those consumers react to Waitrose passing off cross-breed pork as rare-breed pork and stating they’re responsible for reintroducing the Berkshire to the UK?
Not very well, I hope.
Jump over to John Lewis’s flagship store in Oxford Street and its food hall boasts about “succulent Berkshire free range pork (Ramsay’s favourite)“. Hmm, Gordon Ramsay has said he likes Berkshire pork, but I could have sworn he was talking about pure-bred Berkshires and not Waitrose’s cross breeds. Anyone care to ask him what he thinks?
Hmm, sounds like they are trying to get a purebreed price for a mutt.
Acourse in America know a mutt dog is worth as much as a purebreed. Are all Berkshire pigs purebreed from the orginial Berkshire area so dark colored ?
Or their other colors within the breed ?
This reminds me of an article I read a few weeks ago about Certified Angus beef here in the US. The name of the company is “Certified Angus” which brings to mind Angus cattle that are some how certified to be Angus, right? What the company does is buys cattle at auction, and as long as it is 50% (I believe it was 50, it could be off) BLACK in color, they would purchase and it would be sold as Certified Angus.
Now, there are black Simmental cattle, and Red Angus in the marketplace also. You could buy the Certified Angus and be eating simmental or angus cross w/who knows what, while your neighbor down the road raises 100% red angus that would never make it to the Certified Angus label. All because of the color of the hide.
The consumer really has a confusing maze to sort thru. And the companies and government seem to make it more difficult for people to know what they are eating. It can be very deceiving.
My family has had farms in the blood for years and years, and we grew up knowing that a Herefordshire bull and a Friesian cow makes a profit - good milk or good meat, depending on the sex of the offspring.
Now there’s no milk from the farms (they amalgamated the quotas in an attempt to keep one herd going) and so they are going over onto Herefordshire cows to a Hereford bull, although they do have a Charoilais (sp?) I think as well.
No money in it for the medium sized farmer these days, let alone the small holder.
I don’t have a problem with crossing. We’ve done it ourselves in the past and it’s often the best way of getting a desired result. But I do think honesty is required. If it says Berkshire on the label, it should be Berkshire inside and not 50:50 or 50:25:25.
We agree - hence why the uncle is exploring combinations and breeds, to see if there is enough money in the cross breeds to supplement a herd of pures.
The sheep are all crossed. But I know less about sheep than I do about cows, and that’s saying something! I know they have Jacobs, and Cotsworlds, and sheep-looking sheep!
Waitrose have now shut down the debate on their website, on top of deleting messages from myself and others. I think that says it all!
A Waitrose thread has started on the Farmers Weekly forums. I suspect some of the commercial farmers will have a sharp response and defend Waitrose.
Waitrose has now deleted all the pork, bacon and Aberdeen Angus threads on its forum. I have to say I’m surprised they left them that long.
PS Am I talking to myself when I’m covering this?