Fast-food giant Burger King has announced that it will not be serving bacon from pigs castrated without an anaesthetic from the new year in the Netherlands.
The company’s pigmeat will continue to be supplied from England and Ireland where the practice of castrating piglets is not practiced.
Campaign against castration
Dutch animal rights activist group, Stichting Wakker Dier, has been campaigning for a long time in the Netherlands against castration of pigs.
Big Dutch food producers such as Hema, Unox and Bakker Bart have already joined the Stichting’s cause by pledging to stop the use of meat from castrated pigs by 2009.
Earlier this month, a motion to completely ban castration of pigs without an anaesthetic was denied in the Dutch parliament (Tweede Kamer). In total, around 5 million piglets are transported from the Netherlands abroad on a yearly basis.