Scottish pig farmers urged to ‘stay calm’ over Vion threat

Pig producers supplying the Vion processing plant which is under threat of closure were last night taking a positive approach, with Gordon McKen of Scottish Pig Producers stating that no changes would be being made to their production plans.

“There will be no pigs looking for a home next week. It will be business as usual. Producers will carry on as normal. If there are changes needing to be made, that will happen in two or more months time” he said, referring to the 90-day consultation period which was triggered by Vion yesterday.

The pig meat supply position in Great Britain was tight just now and Scottish pig meat was in demand he added. Producers had also invested heavily in their enterprises in recent years and they were committed to pig production.

Some 50 per cent of SPP’s production currently goes through Vion but this is well back on previous levels of up to 85 per cent. McKen said they had been sending an increasing volume to smaller abattoirs recently.

He was backed up by Philp Sleigh, the chairman of NFU Scotland’s pig and poultry committee, in his “stay calm and no knee jerk reaction” call. Sleigh said the bigger worry for Scottish pig producers was the recent hike in world cereal prices.

Jim McLaren, the chairman of Quality Meat Scotland, was also keen to stress the spare capacity in the red meat processing sector in Scotland. He dismissed any suggestion that the 8,000 or so pigs processed weekly at the Broxburn plant, which amounted to 75 per cent of the total pig kill in Scotland, would in future go down to Vion’s other pigmeat processing plant at Malton.

No doubt with an eye on the loss of the prestigious Scotch Pork label for pigs that went south, McLaren said: “We have twice the capacity we need in Scotland. There are another 18 abattoirs in Scotland who have been processing pigs this year. I am sure they could increase capacity.”

He also cautioned against any rush judgments, saying: “We need to keep our feet on the ground. We are only at the start of a process which will last three months and possibly more. That will give us time to look at the options.”

Union president Nigel Miller, who had been in talks with Vion, confirmed the company had no plans to reduce throughput in the near future.