When is a free range pig not a free range pig?
Posted by kathryn in Food Labelling and Sustainablity
In a report that somewhat befudlles me, I read in today’s SMH that the ACCC has dismissed a complaint by some pork farmers into misuse of the phrase “free range”. The ACCC has ruled there is no difference between pigs who spend their whole life outside and those which only spend the first few weeks of their life outside, before being moved to intensive rearing enclosures.
The ruling hinges on consumer interpretation of the phrases “free range” and “bred free range”. In the bred free range group, pigs spend the first few weeks of their lives outdoors, where they’re free to roam in paddocks. At about three weeks they are weaned, moved to indoor enclosures with other pigs and then slaughtered at five months.
However the ACCC has ruled consumers don’t know the difference between free range and bred free range and therefore both terms are valid:
“If a claim such as free range does nothing more than confuse the average consumer as to its meaning, then the claim is not misleading,” the assistant director of the regulator’s Queensland branch, David Sutherland, wrote.
Does this strike anyone else as bizarre? Consumers are confused, but as long as everyone’s confused, the status quo is aceptable. I realise the ACCC is only responding to the legal challenge and it’s possibly not within the remit of this case to establish a clear guideline, but surely confusion is not the best outcome?
Apparently in Australia, a free range pig is not necessarily what you might think.
18 September, 2007
Comments
That is a completely baffling approach! If it confuses everybody then it’s OK, if only one or two people are confused then it must be a problem. And I always thought you Australians were such a sensible bunch :-)
That’s appalling…
i find it baffling too! and disturbing.
on a related note, reading The Ethics of What We Eat is proving to be a great experience, but it raises lots of similar points of confusion. food certainly is a complex issue!
Oh Sophie, don’t go accusing us of anything like sensible-ness. I really don’t think we have any greater claims to being sensible, than most other countries. But it’s one of those reports that did make me sigh and wonder about where our food supply is headed.
Lindsey, I read Omnivore’s Dilemma over my holidays and yes, you’re right, food is a complex, difficult issue. So much is kept hidden away from us. Once you start delving it can be confronting and challenging.
David Sutherland’s comment is so ludicrous and confusing, I wonder if he even understands what he means?? It’s such a contradiction in terms.
And how can they say that “there is no difference between pigs who spend their whole life outside, and those which only spend the first few weeks of their life outside, before being moved to intensive rearing enclosures?” That’s just completely crazy…surely there’s a whole world of difference?
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