Normally, arriving for breakfast in a hotel and finding that no sausages, rashers or pudding could be served would be a cause of, well dammit, outrage. But since I was dying of a hangover (and still am as I write this), it wasn’t such an inconvenience.
The Galway Walking Club had their Xmas ‘do’ in the Fairhill House Hotel in An Fhairche (Clonbur) on the Galway/Mayo border on Saturday night and, as usual, sobreity was in short supply.
The next morning, breakfast was distinctly pork-free. On Saturday night, the Irish government ordered a total recall of all Irish pork products. A toxic contaminant had affected a batch of industrial feed (it appears at this time that some oil leaked into a batch of pig feed) which had in turn contaminated large amounts of pig food products.
Not all pig farmers use the affected feed and in the next few days, they will be allowed to sell their produce again. But as of now, every supermarket and butcher shop is prevented from selling any products. The good news is that the contamination is, in itself, not a danger to people – only long-term, continuous consumption would cause ill health [and if you eat sausages and rashers every day, toxins are the least of your health worries]. It is a disaster for the Irish pork industry – at the very time that nearly every household is plannning to order a Christmas ham, there isn’t a single one for sale. I suspect Irish people will go back to eating Irish pork very quickly, but it will be a different situation abroad. Britain is the biggest importer of Irish pork and supermarkets there will already be working to replace Irish suppliers with their rivals in Holland, Denmark – it will take a long time to win back lost market share.