2005 press releases

Following two days in the High Court to decide the future of where Melton Mowbray pork pies can be made, Mr Justice Crane has today reserved judgment in the case of Northern Foods against DEFRA.

Carol Williams, Company Secretary of Northern Foods, commented:

 “Hopefully common sense will prevail.  We’ve been making great pork pies for our customers for over a hundred years.  To them, Melton Mowbray stands for delicious pies.  Our pies are very high quality and made to traditional recipes, and we think that is more important than whether or not the factory that makes them is in a completely spurious area of the East Midlands - which is much larger than the immediate area around Melton Mowbray.  We have fought this challenge all the way on some very clear principles and we will have no compunction about fighting on in Europe.”

 Northern Foods has been making Melton Mowbray pork pies to traditional recipes for over a hundred years from its sites in Trowbridge, Wiltshire; Market Drayton in Shropshire; and originally in Birmingham.

 Production has been under threat from the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association, which wants to restrict production of the pies to an area of 1,800 square miles of the East Midlands which includes Leicester, Nottingham and Northampton.   It also insists that genuine Melton Mowbray pork pies must be grey in colour and made from uncured pork, despite the fact that the Association’s dominant member, Samworth Brothers, supplies cured Melton Mowbray pork pies to some of its customers.