asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries the reasons for the decision that in future all bacon for export must be branded with the words, Irish Bacon; whether he is aware that certain well-known Limerick bacon factories object to this development; and whether he is prepared to take action to meet their objections.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Bacon Exports.
25.
I am informed that the Pigs and Bacon Commission, through whom the export of bacon is centralised, recently notified licensed bacon curers that from next month onwards all bacon for export should not bear individual factory brands but should continue to be strip-marked as Irish, the purpose being that marketing advantages as well as economies in transport and distribution can be achieved by selling the bacon abroad on the national mark basis. I understand that the great majority of bacon curers voluntarily agreed a number of years ago to the discontinuance of factory brands on export bacon but that this did not include a few factories in Limerick and elsewhere although their acceptance of it as a requirement applied to all factories was not ruled out. The matter is a commercial one in which I would not deem it appropriate for me to intervene.
If there is inferior bacon or smelly bacon—I do not know what it was called in the past in Monaghan—and it is exported, is there any way it can be identified if it is all being branded "Irish Bacon"? Before this, if a factory sent inferior bacon it was quite easy to trace it back to the factory concerned because the name was stamped on it. Can that be done now? If it can, I do not see any objection.
Yes, it can be. The source of it can be traced through code numbers incorporating a date code and a veterinary pass stamp.