Bang(ers) Out Of Order

I was simultaneously amused and dismayed by the news that Powys Council’s trading standards department have brandished the cosh on one of it’s popular local products. Black Mountains Smokery have been advised to relabel their Welsh Dragon Sausages, to include the word pork, to ensure that vegetarians do not mistakenly buy the product believing them to be meat free. Sounding far more cloak and dagger than reality suggests, Powys Council were “tipped off” that the sausages breached the 1996 Food Labelling Act. I guess the assumption here is that vegetarians are a largely illiterate lot (my wife would strongly disagree) and therefore incapable of reading the word pork on the ingredients list, cunningly placed as it is ahead of other items such as leek and chilli. When I buy Welsh Dragon Sausages from my local butchers, they’re displayed amongst a cornucopia of raw flesh – again, a heavy hint to vegetarians that these product ‘may contain traces of meat’. Despite Powys Council conceding that they “don’t think anyone would imagine that dragon meat was being used” (well, hoo-bloody-ray for common sense!), you have to wonder if their trading standards staff have a little too much time on their hands. What’s next in the firing line? The good old Cumberland? The Frankfurter? Toad In The Hole?!

Black Mountains Smokery website (go to News for other links to this item)