'Pig Idea' meets with resistance

Monday, February 3, 2014

There were no reservations required at The Pig Idea Feast, held in London's Trafalgar Square this past November. MeatInfo.co.uk reports that chefs from top local restaurants served "thousands" of Londoners a free lunch featuring pork that had been fed exclusively on legally accepted food waste.

Feeding catering waste, or swill, to pigs has been banned since the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001. The Pig Idea wants this ban lifted, and a return to the traditional practice of swill-feeding, which it sees as a sustainable means to reduce waste while saving farmers costly imports of feeds like soy that could be feeding humans.

The reservations come from the National Pig Association (NPA). MeatInfo reports that, in early November, NPA chairman Richard Longthorp wrote a letter to the heads of various supermarkets warning that, if swill-feeding were reintroduced, "sooner or later there will be a breakdown in controls."

However, there could be room for the two sides to work together. The Pig Site reports that, in an October House of Commons meeting, "peace was in danger of breaking out" when Longthorp found common ground with The Pig Idea founders.

We don't think he was at the feast, though. BP