On Saturday October 6th local Greenpeace volunteers invited shoppers at supermarkets around the country to tell Danish Crown, producers of leading Danish bacon brand Danepak to “Give GM animal feed the boot”. Shoppers will be sending postcards and an envelope containing non-GM pig feed to the UK head office of Danish Crown subsidiary, Tulip International UK.
The events are part of an ongoing national campaign to get supermarkets and producers to produce all their meat and dairy products from animals fed on non-GM feed.
Danish Crown is the third largest pork producer in the world and the largest pork exporter. As well as selling bacon under the Danepak and Tulip brand in the UK it is also a major supplier of Danish bacon to the UK supermarket own labels.
Since the launch of the Greenpeace campaign for non-GM animal feed more than twenty five food companies have announced that they are committed to making their food ranges completely non-GM, by eliminating the practice of feeding GM crops to animals. They include most of the major supermarkets and fast food chains and also many food producers (1). Most supermarkets are now selling non-GM fresh poultry and free range eggs but most still have some way to go before all the meat and dairy products on sale in stores are non-GM.
Kathryn Tulip, GM animal feed campaigner said,
“Danish Crown says that it will produce some pigs (5-7,000 pigs per week) fed on a non-GM diet for the UK market (2). But we estimate these non-GM pigs will represent only 2% of Danish Crown’s total pig production. This is a start but it’s not enough, the majority of consumers want to buy animal products fed on non-GM feed (3).”
She added,
“This campaign is a chance for people to tell Danish Crown to stop feeding their pigs with GM feed and to give GM the boot. There is no excuse, if the poultry industry can switch to non-GM then so can pig producers.”
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(1) Companies who have committed to removing ingredients that come from animals fed on GM feed include: Asda, Loseley, Cow and Gate, Co-op, Findus, Heinz, HP, Patak’s, Waitrose, Iceland, Jordans, Kettle Foods, McCain, Marks and Spencer, Sainsburys, Tesco, Safeway, United Biscuits, SMA, Grampian, Bernard Matthews, McDonalds, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut.
(2) Danish Crown press release 16.02.01′ Danish Crown launches pork based on GMO-free feed’.
(3) An NOP poll conducted for Greenpeace in September 2000 found that 67% of respondents were opposed to farm animals being fed GM soya.
