Restaurants and supermarkets in California have been given six months to use up the state’s current pork supplies before being limited to meat from pigs covered by a controversial new hog-farming regulation.
The rule, recently verified as lawful by the U.S. Supreme Court, prohibits the sale of meat at any stage of the supply chain from pigs born to sows kept in the narrow gestation crates that are currently the pork industry’s standard. The ban applies regardless of where the animals were born, raised or slaughtered, in state or out.
The law is scheduled to go into effect July 1. On Thursday, the Superior Court of California for Sacramento County ruled that supplies of whole pork meat purchased and stored before that date could be sold and used until Dec. 31 instead of being discarded.
The court ruling drew immediate protests from animal-rights advocates, who stressed that the law was approved by voters in a 2018 ballot referendum, Proposition 12. The measure has become a model for animal-welfare groups in other states.
“Prop 12 is unambiguous: Pork sold in the state after the effective date must not come from operations that severely confine sows in gestation crates,” Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and a self-professed architect of the ballot measure, said in a statement.
The six-month extension on the purchase of pork raised in accordance with California’s prior farming standard had the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with such groups as the California Restaurant Association.
They and other parties requesting the extension had raised concerns that few pork purveyors could comply with the July 1 start date and warned that the situation would have likely resulted in a severe pork shortage and sharply higher prices.
“Granting six months of additional relief for products in the supply chain allows grocery stores to remain stocked so the 40 million Californians have uninterrupted access to affordable, safe and nutritious pork products, especially with rising food prices,” Bryan Humphreys, CEO of the National Pork Producers Council, said in a statement.
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