ANGRY Yorkshire pig farmers claim they face financial ruin as caterers and some supermarkets opt to sell cheaper European meat.

About 450 farmers attended a crisis meeting at Bishop Burton Agricultural College in East Yorkshire, at which the British Pig Support Group (BPSG) was formed to encourage shoppers to insist on buying British pork and bacon.

The call to shoppers comes a couple of months after it was revealed that Malton Bacon Factory, the country's biggest bacon curer and pork processor, was reviewing its existing contracts with UK pig farmers.

The Norton-based factory is believed to be planning to use less UK produced meat in favour of cheaper foreign imports.

Stewart Houston, who has a 300-sow unit on the outskirts of Ripon and also runs a pig equipment manufacturing company, is the chairman of the new BPSG.

He said some supermarkets - notably Tesco, Safeway and Waitrose - had gone out of their way to support British producers, most of whom were now keeping pigs on straw in large, airy barns.

But he said many caterers and several supermarkets were importing increasing quantities of meat from the Continent, where most sows were kept in boxes similar to veal crates, without even the basic freedom to turn round.

Many of Malton Bacon Factory's customers do specify they require British-produced meat.

But, in future, if a buyer does not specify then the factory says it is free to choose the most cost-effective source of meat.

Mr Houston said: "It was the supermarkets who asked us to provide high-welfare pork and bacon. But now that practically every British pig unit has spent thousands of pounds on meeting their demands, they have ditched us.

"All we are asking is that they listen to their customers, who are telling them loud and clear that they want food that's safety assured and traceable."

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