A SURVEY OF Irish butchers has found that nearly a third of pork sold as ‘Irish’ was not from this country.
The Irish Farmers’ Association says that DNA testing on pork has found that customers are being misled into thinking they are buying Irish when they are not.
As part of the December testing programme, butchers in Wexford, Galway, Cork and Cavan were asked the question ‘Is this Irish?’ when researchers were buying the products.
Every one of the butchers said the pork was Irish but subsequent DNA testing found that out the 91 products sampled, 26 were not part of the Irish boar DNA database.
This translates to 29% of the total pork products tested being non-Irish.
The IFA’s Pat O’Flaherty says this is an improvement on previous tests which showed non-Irish rates of up to 50% but is still a problem they are concerned about:
Another major cause for concern is that fact that there were a number of stores stocking imported loin chops. Of the 26 products that were not Irish, 40% were loin chops and 44% were back rashers.We are horrified that fresh pork is being imported into this country. This is a new development and one which the consumer would never expect.
The IFA says it is to meet with the butchers surveyed, in particular those who had a higher percentage of foreign meat to encourage them to use Irish suppliers.
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