It’s the start of National Picnic Week today, but campaigners at Pig Business have noticed that Britain’s pig industry leaders have been trying to hog the headlines by with their attempts to change “picnics” to “PIG’nics”.

Fair enough if the nation were being encouraged to add “free range produced pork” to their picnic hampers as they head for the great outdoors, but the sad reality is that this campaign centres its support on pork producing schemes called Red Tractor where most of the pigs are denied straw let alone the outdoor experience, instead being reared under indoor, barren, factory farmed conditions.

‘Pig Business’ is all for a good picnic and is hugely supportive of Britain’s high welfare pig farmers, so why not use this opportunity to encourage shoppers to look for high welfare labels. And, when they discover that most products don’t explain how the pig has been raised, exert pressure on the government to introduce mandatory method of production labelling.

Pig Business is calling on Britain’s picnickers to use their consumer power to shun factory farmed pork this week and support high welfare farmers by ensuring their hampers only contain pork from high welfare systems from the basic RSPCA freedom food standard to the gold standard such as free range or organic.

The Pignic project is part of a larger campaign initiative that Britain’s pig industry leaders have launched this summer called ‘Love Summer, Love Pork’ http://www.lovepork.co.uk/.The campaign is run by BPEX, who represent the pig industry in England and campaign to increase demand for UK pork.

Their campaign encourages consumers to look for the Red Tractor pork logo, run by Assured Food Standards. Yet this is a scheme to be aware of, as it claims to promote good farming practices, but in reality often offers little assurance to consumers beyond simple compliance with minimum legal requirements. Though UK standards are higher than on the continent, where sows have spent 90% of their lives confined to crates that they can’t even turn around in, they may be closely confined in farrowing (when suckling piglets) crates and piglets may be reared indoors in intensive systems without any bedding. Their relentless boredom in such barren conditions results in tail docking to prevent their biting each other’s tails.

The Pig Business team has spent the last 5 years campaigning for radical reform of the world’s pig industry, calling for legislation and public procurement that moves away from intensive factory farm systems to more extensive, welfare friendly pig systems which protect public health and the environment. With over 40% of Britain’s pig farmers operating outdoor systems why not take this outdoor experience to support them.

The Marchioness of Worcester says,“National Picnic Week provides the ideal opportunity to taste outdoor produced pork in the great outdoors! Ham up your hampers with some free range or organic pork but spare a thought for the thousands of factory farmed pigs in this country who won’t get to taste fresh air this week. Also make sure you check the label to ensure it’s British outdoor produced pork so you can give your support to our great British farmers who choose to farm by putting animals on the land and not in factories”.