British sausage-maker explodes over “flawed” meat report and threatens UN with legal action
A British wholesale meat supplier is furious over a “flawed” sausage report from the UN, and is now threatening to take legal action.
Two weeks ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released the results of a study into the cancer-causing effects of processed meat, and ruled that eating one-and-a-half sausages a day increases risk of developing the disease by up to 18 per cent.
But Denis Lynn, founder and head of Lynn's County Foods, says the report is “clumsily structured”, and that it fails to differentiate between healthy British sausages and those imported from elsewhere in Europe, which are often packed with chemicals.
He argues that while European manufacturers tend to use nitrate-based preservatives, British sausage manufacturers use sodium metabisulphite as a preservative, which is considered safe.
“The WHO has taken leave of its senses,” he told The Sun. “It is absurd to lump safe British sausages in with all the rest. Eating one of our sausages carries no more of a health risk than tucking into a pork chop.”
Lynn's Country Foods churns out 135m sausages a year, and supplies five of the biggest UK high street supermarkets. Lynn says the company's sales have dropped 20 per cent since the report came out, and he claims a large amount of damage has been done to other British companies, too.
He has written a letter to the UN, backed by former environment secretary Owen Paterson, threatening to take legal action over the report, which he says “misunderstands the classification and different manufacturing techniques of the same family of products”. He said he will take them to court unless they clarify the difference.