Thousands of free pork lunches were served up in Trafalgar Square yesterday in support of a campaign to have EU rules changed to allow more food waste to be fed to pigs.
Campaign group The Pig Idea served pork from eight pigs that had been reared on food waste at London’s Stepney City Farm.
The Pig Idea is calling for an EU ban on catering waste in pig feed to be lifted. It also wants more legally permissible food to be fed to pigs.
Feeding food waste to pigs was a “fantastic” way of producing meat that avoided the colossal environmental cost of growing commercial pig feed, much of which was imported from South America, said campaign founder Tristram Stuart. “Farmers could save money by using local sources of food waste instead of buying pig feed, which is getting ever more expensive with the squeeze on global food supplies.”
The group says any edible food waste should go for human consumption first but should otherwise be used as animal feed instead of being sent to anaerobic digestion or composting.
The pigs served at yesterday’s event were fed on legally permissible waste such as brewer’s grains from London’s White Hart microbrewery, whey from Gringa Dairy in Peckham, okara (a tofu by-product) from Clean Bean Tofu on Brick Lane, as well as fruit and veg from Reynolds Catering Supplies and Watney Market.
The Pig Idea’s call for the removal of the EU ban has been criticised by the National Pig Association.
The event was “a superficially attractive concept, promoted by well-meaning people, but it is destined to fail because it is fundamentally unsafe, and consequently the European Union will not be persuaded to lift its zero-tolerance ban on feeding swill to pigs”, it said in a statement.
The campaign is supported by celebrities including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Wahaca Mexican restaurant founder Thomasina Miers, and DJ Sara Cox.
Images: Karolina Webb/Pig Idea
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