No way to save our bacon as pork crisis hits

It was a strange, almost apocalyptic sight in Mullingar. Like King Herod sweeping through Judea to strike down the first born sons, shopkeepers, butchers, restaurant owners and householders performed a massive cull of their pork stocks on Sunday and Monday last.By Tuesday, shelves and kitchens were empty of ham, rashers, sausages, chops and other pork products, as the full effects of Saturday"s Irish pork alert hit home.The alarm was raised after pig feed supplied by one manufacturer to thirty-seven Irish farms was found to have contained between 80 and 200 times the recommended limit of dioxin PCB, resulting in a recall of all Irish pork products dating from September 1 of this year.Edel O"Brien, who runs the Centra shop and delicatessen on the O"Brien family"s car sales campus on Mullingar"s Lynn Road, reckons that every day since Sunday last has been 'like a Good Friday', with a lot of people missing their early morning sausage roll.'We had a lot of people in to us on Sunday before the Joe Dolan statue launch,' Ms. O"Brien told the Westmeath Examiner. 'We have a very busy deli here, so we"re kept going, and some of Cuisine de France"s lines of pork are okay.'She said that suppliers are being sourced, and businesses selling pork products are being kept up to date as to what"s becoming available for order. For now though, all pork/bacon has been cleared off the shelves and returned.'As well as stocking Centra brands, we also have pork products from Galtee, Denny, Tullamore Meats and others, and we will have no problem being compensated,' Ms. O"Brien added.Some businesses are adapting well to the absence of pork, and have improvised. O"Brien"s Centra, for instance, keep a line of beef sausages in stock, supplied by Mullingar butcher Seamus Bracken.Beef and turkey sausages are on the menu at Rustic Oil"s Topaz filling station in Mullingar Business Park, which houses a very popular deli counter. Eoin Crosbie, Financial Controller with Rustic Oil Ltd., said that it was important that businesses adapted quickly to developments.'We"ve found that customers are still coming in the same volume, and some of them have said that they might never go back to eating ham again,' Mr. Crosbie said. 'People and businesses are adapting to this in the same way they did when pounds and pence made way for euros, or when the smoking ban came into effect in pubs.'At the moment, we"re awaiting word from suppliers as to how and when this mess will be sorted out,' he added.PackedThe news has not affected breakfast or lunch trade in Mullingar"s eateries, as both Frayne"s and Ilia were packed to capacity yesterday afternoon (Monday) with people simply asking for an extra egg, said Tommy Frayne who runs a coffee shop on Mount Street.