Know you farmer, Know your pork!

Food, food, food! We can’t go a day without thinking about it and making choices that effect local businesses and the ethics around good food.

Thankfully there are many amazing Australian producers of quality and ethically produced food around that will not only share with us what it is about their food that is important but what other farmers in the Australian industry are doing.

Your bacon is on my mind! Is that little piggy happy and free range – truly? Is it Australian produced or imported? and how do you tell?

In fact, approximately 70% of pork smallgoods in this country are made from frozen imported pork from pigs grown in cramped conditions overseas. Where you spend your money matters – your money supports the continued production practices of the food you have bought, and the retailer you purchase from. Not only that, where you spend your money can support local businesses, and local artisans of pork small goods. 

Don’t know how to select ethical pork? Well the Flavour Crusader has come to the rescue with their Australian producers ‘ethical and free range pork directory! This directory, while not necessarily conclusive, provides a listing of pork producers across Australia, offering free range production, and some background on the heirloom breeds and lifestyles of some of these pigs.

Globally, in 1995, there were only 50 Wessex Saddleback sows. In Australia in 2011, there were only 12 Hampshire sows registered and under 150 of Large Blacks and Tamworths. Providing a diversity of breeds, means of diversity of pork products and greater resilience in pigs generally. If you want to save their bacon, seek registered purebred pigs, from free range farm production.

 So I ask you – do you want to support pork producers of overseas and shed based pork production practices? Or do you want to see Australian ethical and free range pork production increase, and understand how and where your pork comes from? 

When you think bacon or pork – think local, ethical and free range – and get the right sort of pork on your fork!