Business

Power vacuum 'impacting on our health and wellbeing' claims food boss

Finnebrogue Artisan boss Denis Lynn
Finnebrogue Artisan boss Denis Lynn Finnebrogue Artisan boss Denis Lynn

THE power vacuum at Stormont isn't just hurting corporate Northern Ireland in the pocket, but is impacting on people's health and everyday wellbeing, a leading businessman claims.

And entrepreneur Denis Lynn has written a strongly-worded letter to the north's new secretary of state Julian Smith imploring him to intervene to ensure the region doesn't fall further behind the rest of the UK when it comes to health standards and food quality in schools and hospitals.

Lynn is founder and chair of the £80 million turnover Finnebrogue Artisan, a UK-leading supplier of top tier-sausages, bacon and venison and which employs 450 people in Downpatrick.

His company's revolutionary nitrate-free bacon, the first mass produced rasher to be made without the cancer-causing chemicals traditionally used to cure the meat, has transformed the UK bacon market.

But he is aggrieved that nitrite-cured meats, directly linked to bowel cancer by the World Health Organisation, continue to be being served up to patients in NHS hospitals and young people in schools in Northern Ireland.

"While regions like Scotland are blazing a trail and setting higher standards in its public institutions, Northern Ireland is slipping behind," Mr Lynn told the Irish News.

"The lack of a functioning executive at Stormont has been infuriating, for where the Scottish government is showing political direction when it comes to health standards and food quality in its public schools and hospitals, with politicians from every major party joining a campaign to rid carcinogenic chemicals from public service menus, we're doing nothing.

"As was the case for the smoking ban, it is Scotland taking a lead and showing us what we could also be doing if Stormont was operational."

The Scottish Parliament is proposing a nitrite ban on its premises, and similar action in Scottish NHS hospitals is likely to follow.

In England, research found that more than three-quarters of NHS foundation trusts were feeding cancer-causing nitrites to patients as part of their hospital menus. Leading figures from the Conservative and Labour parties have since spoken up and called for them to be removed.

Professor Chris Elliott at Queen’s University has led nationwide calls for intervention, yet in Northern Ireland no political action has been taken.

Mr Lynn said: "Back in 2006, we quickly followed Edinburgh in introducing a smoking ban of our own. Thirteen years on, no devolved government means we are left rudderless and becalmed at sea.

"Ironically it is a Northern Irish innovation that has both turbo-boosted awareness of nitrites and their risks – and made safer nitrite-free bacon and ham alternatives available on the mass-market for the first time.

"In the 18 months since its launch, our Naked Bacon has become the biggest bacon brand in the UK. Northern Ireland consumers are buying our safer rashers in their thousands, yet in publicly-funded schools and hospitals, our kids and our patients continue to be fed outdated carcinogenic food. This cannot be right, and I have asked the new Secretary of State to intervene."