Saturday, November 18, 2006

No dragons were harmed in the making of these sausages

Today's Daily Telegraph ran an article on a government plan to ban advertising of crisps and other unhealthy foods during children's television programmes. (I think children who watch tv after the watershed are allowed to see these ads, at least until the ban on watching tv after the watershed is issued.)

This wasn't quite the silliest story of the day, though. How about this one:

The makers of Welsh Dragon Sausages were warned they could face legal action if they did not specify which meat they were using.
"I don't think any of our customers actually believe that we use dragon meat," said Jon Carthew, of the Black Mountains Smokery at Crickhowell, after receiving a warning letter from trading standards officers.
Mr Carthew has now added the word pork to labels
for the 200,000 sausages he makes a year from pork, leek and chilli and he has been told that no further action will be taken.

"We use the word dragon because it is synonymous
with Wales and because of the heat with the chilli. To add the word pork means it loses its marketing appeal," he said.
"It is bureaucracy gone mad."

Mr Carthew, 45, said: "It states quite clearly on the label that pork is among the ingredients but they want pork to feature in the actual name of the product."
Powys council said: "The product Welsh Dragon Sausage was not sufficiently precise to inform a purchaser of the true nature of the food.
"I don't think anyone would imagine that dragon meat
was being used but we would not want vegetarians to buy the sausages believing they were meat-free."

2 comments:

  1. If they're going to be strict about it, shouldn't they mostly be called "Mashed up entrails, eyeball and testicle" sausages?

    Anyway, I'm going to complain because there's no penguin in my Penguin and no monsters in my Munch.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Imagine having Absolute Truth in all food labelling! That would be the end of the diet industry.

    ReplyDelete

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