Jenners agrees foie gras ban after campaign led by duchess

Published on Saturday 9 June 2007 00:29

JENNERS, the Scottish department store, is to stop selling foie gras after a long campaign by activists including the Duchess of Hamilton.

The parent group of Jenners, House of Fraser, will ban all forms of foie gras at all its stores.

Advocates for Animals has been campaigning for Jenners to stop selling the product for many years. Foie gras literally means "fatty liver" and is produced by force-feeding ducks and geese until their livers swell to six to ten times their normal size.

In 2000, the Duchess of Hamilton, who is committee chair at Advocates for Animals, and her husband, the duke - Scotland's most senior peer - closed their Jenners account in protest at its refusal to stop selling the delicacy.

Sandy Collyer, buying manager for food at House of Fraser, said: "We have reached a decision to stop selling foie gras on ethical grounds. The sale ban includes all forms of foie gras in House of Fraser stores, including Scotland's premier department store, Jenners."

A letter to the duchess said: "I am sure that you will be delighted to hear that last month the decision was taken on ethical grounds to stop selling foie gras in all its forms in House of Fraser stores."

The duchess said: "I am indeed delighted. There can surely be no excuse for inflicting such terrible suffering on these animals in order to produce a luxury food. I am pleased that my husband and I will once again be able to shop in Jenners. I am sure many other shoppers will feel the same."

Advocates' director, Ross Minett, added: "We congratulate House of Fraser. There can be no other system of farming in which animals are deliberately raised to become deformed and diseased. An EU-wide ban on force-feeding is overdue.

"Until that time, any efforts to reduce consumption of foie gras in the UK are surely to be welcomed. We urge other stores to follow this example by keeping foie gras off their shelves, restaurants and chefs to keep it off their menus, and members of the public not to buy it. We look forward to the day when foie gras in Scotland is a thing of the past."

Other store groups including Waitrose, Sainsburys and Lidl have already ended the sale of foie gras.

Animal campaigners will continue to inform other stores and restaurants across the country of the suffering caused by foie gras production and ask them to stop selling it.

In the making of foie gras, pneumatic pumps force huge quantities of food into the birds in just 2-3 seconds. Such force-feeding leads to diseases such as fibrosis, liver haemorrhages and jaundice. The huge liver can make walking and breathing difficult.

During the force-feeding period, many birds are kept in individual cages which are so tiny that they cannot stand erect, turn round or flap their wings. A high percentage of these birds have lesions of the sternum and bone fractures at the slaughterhouse.

• THE Duchess of Hamilton, a former nurse, has been a long-term campaigner for animal rights.

She chose to give up shopping at Jenners because of its policy of selling foie gras and fur.

She is chair of Animals for Advocates and has spoken out against hunting, docking of dogs' tails and inhumane treatment of farm animals.

She runs a small animal sanctuary at Archerfield, East Lothian, where one "rescuee" was a white turkey that jumped off the back of a lorry on its way to the slaughterhouse.

Her interest in animals was stimulated by her father bringing animals home when she was a child.