Thursday 28 February 2013

Walkers put real meat in their crisps

Walkers want him in your crisps

In a very strange move, Walkers Crisps in the UK (in the UK, crisps are what we cal chips) have decided to add real meat to their crisps. So far, smoky bacon flavour and roast chicken will be affected.

Although they alerted the Vegetarian Society in the UK, that’s the only warning vegetarians got.

See story here

Understandably, vegetarians are angry and have posted comments on the Walkers Facebook page

Be warned – your comments will probably be removed. Two I made were and I was polite and unthreatening. Clearly, the company has underestimated how angry people would be.

The firm say they will be using only "only Free Range Chicken and Freedom Food Pork to ensure the highest standards of animal welfare." As if that's okay.

Freedom Food is run by the RSPCA in the UK and is meant to ensure the highest standard of animal welfare. How animals wish that were true.

Here's a piece on the Not so Happy Egg Company, who qualified under the RSPCA's Freedom Food scheme. In a joint undercover investigation by 5 News and VIVA(Vegetarian International Voice for Animals) , they were found to have contravened strict rules on animal welfare. Investigations found that the places where the hens were kept were in the words of VIVA "nothing short of factory farms."

Slave labour

If that isn't enough, a gangmaster who supplied workers to Happy Eggs and Freedom Foods chickens had their license revoked because workers were said to be beaten and trafficked. Read the full story here.

So much for Happy Eggs.

If you have any questions or comments about Walkers, please contact the consumer careline on 0800 274777 or email consumer@walkers.co.uk

Please remember that the people who work on these helplines are not responsible for the change of policy by their employer and be polite.

Veggie friendly crisps

Thankfully, not every company has gone down the pig or chicken in your crisps route, here are some vegetarian friendly brands in the UK -

Golden Wonder
Seabrooks - note, the tomato ketchup, sea salt and vinegar is vegan, Sea Salted Perfectly Unsalted, Chilli Flavour.

Please keep checking ingredients, because as we've discovered with Walkers, ingredients are subject to change.

 

2 comments:

  1. I rarely eat crisps, but when I do, it's never walkers, I think they taste horrible and greasy as it is. Having said that, it really does seem unecessary to start using real meat and I'd be very surprised if they don't lose a lot of sales because of it.

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  2. OMG! I had no idea about this!! Why??!! They were perfectly fine before!!

    Thanks so much for this post, I would hate to have not realised and continued eating them..

    Alex
    Bump to Baby

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