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If you’re looking for pork products in Irish shops today you’ll find most of the shelves are bare due to a health scare.
The Irish Times has a nice FAQ about the pork recall that explains all the nitty gritty details.
What it doesn’t tell you, however, is how many small shops are going to go out of business as a result of this.
It transpires that the meat producers will be reimbursing the shops for their stock, but it could take between 6 and 8 weeks for this to happen. With the current strain on credit this may be the last straw for some shopkeepers who are already at the limit of their overdrafts and credit lines.
I guess we’ll know more over the coming weeks, but talk about bad timing!
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This morning, the cafe where I had breakfast in Fairview served full Irish with bacon and sausages. Then the Lidl had shelves full of pork products!
Bad timing for all concerned alright.
I’ve been talking to 2 people already today who have thrown out their recently-bought christmas hams, with trips up to newry being scheduled to replace them. Terrible time of year for a consumer confidence issue like this to strike.
Merrill
Any Irish produced pork products should have been pulled. If the produce is imported it should be ok however
Michele
Paul
The thing that worries me is that some of the smaller corner shops were already under pressure. Having to go without stock and then replace it is going to push some of them to the very edge
Michele
Michele; they can apparently seek compensation from the manufacturers.
Robert,
I think the problem with shops seeking compensation from the manufacturers is the 6-8 week response time in getting these funds released Michele mentioned above.
The manufacturers will no doubt have their own budgetary black hole until govt assistance or the like comes through, so will be reluctant to reimburse a shop’s pork stock holding until they themselves can afford to do so. The retailers, in the meantime, are going to have a fair percentage of their customers looking for refunds on purchased pork, leaving them further out of pocket.
This combination of circumstances will unfortunately leave many small retailers with a fairly big hole in their finances, in the short-term at least, particularly those running on tighter margins.
With banks being particularly unwilling to release further credit to bridge these potential gaps, there doesn’t seem to be an easy fix to the problems many smaller retailers are likely to see in the coming weeks unfortunately.
Paul
Robert
The promise of compensation alone isn’t going to be enough for a lot of smaller retailers. I know from talking to some of them that the credit crunch is affecting them in more than ways than one.
One the one side their suppliers and the banks are tightening up on credit lines, while on the other their customers (ie. us – the general public) are being a lot more careful how we spend.
When you combine both factors you end up with a pretty precarious state of affairs.
If you then chuck a food scare into the midst of things it gets really hairy.
How many people are going to stop eating ALL pork products for the next few months?
What about the deposits shops and butchers will have taken on ham etc?
It gets really really messy very quickly
Michele
one little piggie went to market… and that little piggie went home 😀
I wouldn’t bother going to Newry now either, seems they’ve been infected too!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7770097.stm
Eve
Wonderful! Not!
Michele
Hi,
First off… I do occasionally eat meat, but a lot less than I used to!
Having said that take a look at this site that a friend pointed me to some time back. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already visited it but whatever your opinion of the subject matter is, you must agree that it is very clever.
The Meatrix/
All the best,
Anthony.