A spokesman for the pig processing industry has rejected as "misleading" claims of a huge increase in the wholesale mark-up on bacon in the past 20 years.
Mr Gerry Farrell of IBEC was responding to figures produced by a Kildare pig producer, Mr Michael Reilly, which suggested the combined mark-up of processors and retailers was now some 800 per cent of the price paid to farmers, compared with 350 per cent in 1983.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio yesterday, Mr Farrell said the figures related to "best-back bacon," which accounted for only 5 per cent of total consumption. Publishing such "selective" statistics did no favours for the consumer.
Mr Farrell asserted also that CSO figures showed wholesale bacon prices had risen by a mere 2-3 per cent in the past seven years, while Irish farmers received the full EU average price for pigs.
On the same programme, Mr Dermot Jewell of the Consumers Association said Mr Reilly's figures were "astonishing" and required explanation for consumers, at a time when sensitivity about prices was high.
According to Mr Reilly, farmers received the equivalent of €1.47 per kilo in 1983, when the finished product sold for €5.14 in the shops. Today they receive €1.25 per kilo, while the retail prices is €10.10. Describing the situation as a "rip-off," he said he was getting out of pig production because it made no sense to be paid 20 per cent less than the price applying 20 years ago.