Pigs farmers have undertaken two protests in less than a week in SuperValu stores in Castletroy, Co Limerick, last Friday, and Kilbarry, Co Waterford, on Tuesday, in a bid to highlight low prices and cheap imports.

Listen to "Pig farmer protest in SuperValu" on Spreaker.

Tensions ran high at the protest in Castletroy Shopping Centre, with staff threatening to call An Garda Síochána if farmers did not leave peacefully on Friday 10 August.

Up to 20 pig farmers loaded up shopping trolleys with imported pork to highlight the proliferation of foreign produce in Irish supermarkets, as growing feed bills and imported pork place increasing pressure on their own product.

“Pig farmers are being faced with financial ruin. Lads are losing 20c/kg…they’re losing €6,000 a week,” IFA pigs committee chair Tom Hogan told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“We want to see Musgraves and SuperValu selling 100% Irish pigmeat.

‘‘The biggest issue we have is we come into the shop and there is plenty of the quality assurance and Bord Bia meats, but then you see Meadow Fields which might sound Irish, but it’s from Holland.’’

Hogan said the IFA has now started an intensive pigmeat testing campaign, following its discovery of a substantial number of pork products on supermarket shelves that are not of Irish origin.

Perfect storm

A “perfect storm” has been created, according to IFA national treasurer Tim Cullinan, who highlighted how the drought had created competition between sectors such as dairy and pigs for feed, which was driving up prices.

“We’ve sought a meeting with Minister Creed and we’re asking him to come on board with all the key stakeholders within the industry and we’d hope that the minister would do that immediately because we are in an absolute crisis situation at the moment,” Cullinan said.

Cheaper imports undercutting domestic produce and higher feed prices were also pointed out as a problem by pig farmer Maurice O’Brien from Mitchelstown in Co Cork.

“Pig farmers were lucky to break even for the first six months of the year but feed prices are rising and there are a lot of people getting phone calls from their millers, saying feed prices are going up by €10/t to €20/t.

“Yet our factories are saying they’re under vast amount of pressure to sell the product but still there’s a vast amount of Dutch products for sale in supermarkets,” O’Brien said.

A spokesperson for SuperValu’s parent company Musgraves stated: “100% of SuperValu-branded fresh pork and bacon is sourced in Ireland and Bord Bia-certified. Like any other grocery retailer, we also carry other brands of pork and bacon.”