By Jessica Rowe
As consumer concern increases over buying pork the Pork Board is expected to introduce a new welfare label on supermarket shelves next month, but consumer representatives are warning it could be deceptive.
Intensive pig farming has been a contentious issue following comedian Mike King's revelations about the widespread use of sow stalls.
Suddenly, consumers wanted to know more about the origin of their meat, and the welfare of the animals that produced it.
The Pork Board responded by developing a label declaring "100 percent NZ Pork welfare approved" and it's expected to be launched next month.
But Consumer New Zealand believes the label is misleading.
“I think it is particularly deceiving,” says Sue Chetwin of Consumer NZ. “It doesn't give the consumers a choice about how the pigs have been farmed. They could have been in sow crates or farrowing crates and the consumer is none the wiser.”
Ms Chetwin says it makes it impossible for consumers to differentiate between free range and intensively farmed pork.
“The consumers would have to really search them out because of the labelling that the pork industry is putting on all the other pork farmers.”
Free range farmers 3 News has spoken to want nothing to do with it.
“It doesn't help the consumer in anyway, it tells them that the product is to the welfare code that exists at the moment approved by the act is being complied with but that's it,” says Gregor Fyfe of Freedom Farms.
“We know consumers are looking for more than that.”
Mr Fyfe's Freedom Farms brand uses the SPCA Blue Tick which specifically bans the use of sow stalls and farrowing crates.
The Pork Board declined to speak to 3 News but in a statement said it was “developing a labelling system that would ultimately deliver consumers choice”.
Animal welfare groups want sow stalls banned and they say the Pork Board is out of touch with public opinion.
“Our own government is looking at banning sow stalls on the grounds of cruelty and yet the Pork Board is going to put welfare approved labelling on pork products that come out of this system,” says Hans Kriek of SAFE.
Sow stalls have already been banned in Britain and parts of the United States.
3 News