Group calls for Galtee boycott over meat claims

CONSUMERS have been urged to boycott the Galtee, Shaws and Roscrea brands amid claims they contain non-Irish pigmeat.

A war of words developed yesterday between Breeo Foods — which manages the Galtee brand — and an action group which mounted a 100-strong protest outside the plant in Mitchelstown, Co Cork.

Save Galtee Action Group plans to place a number of large posters around Munster claiming many of the products don’t contain Irish meat, but imported food.

The group’s chairman, Ned O’Keeffe TD, who is a major pig producer, said his group wanted to highlight that Irish consumers were being “short-changed by smart and ambiguous labelling and marketing”.

He claimed the Irish food industry is being short-changed by firms such as Dairygold — the parent company of Galtee, Shaws and Roscrea — because they were pursuing a “disastrous outsourcing policy which had no benefit for producers, workers or consumers”.

Four years ago Galtee Meats had 450 workers. However, Breeo Foods management axed slaughtering and introduced sweeping rationalisation at the Mitchelstown plant where only packaging is now done.

On June 1, management announced it would be closing the plant with the loss of the remaining 55 jobs. However, the company hasn’t announced an exact closure date.

Action group secretary Tony Lewis said the organisation would be seeking a meeting with supermarket chains to try and force them show that not all the brands were made of Irish meat.

Councillor Kevin O’Keeffe said people living in Munster didn’t want the world-renowned brands selling foreign meat.

A Breeo Foods spokesman said an independent audit on it carried out by KPMG confirmed it purchased the same substantial quantity of Irish pig meat every year since it ceased pig slaughtering operations in 2004, and it will do so again this year.

He said: “As this audit is now complete, Breeo is currently finalising arrangements with Bord Bia to have its ‘Origin Ireland’ quality logo appear on the products. It is planned that this will be phased in on Galtee packaging across the range of products over the next number of months.”

He said calls for a boycott were “entirely counter-productive and detrimental” to the interests of the pig farmers protesting as well as an Irish business purchasing Irish pig meat.