Dilemmas in sustainability - should we eat squirrels?
BBC
A Budgens store in North London has started selling squirrel meat. It has proved to be very popular - and just a touch controversial. Articles have appeared in newspapers with outraged responses from animal lovers.
Of course, those responses make no rational sense. If we need more environmentally benign ways of eating, then eating wild game is a terrific thing to do. Grey squirrels are pests - they are culled in many parts of the country. So if you're going to kill them you might as well get the food benefit of what you were going to do anyway.
The other aspect of irrationality is that the only reason for the outrage is (a) squirrels look cute and fluffy and (b) we're not accustomed to eating them. We eat rabbit - cute and fluffy, but we've gotten used to the fact that people eat them. We eat partridge and pheasant. Good looking birds, but not cute.
From Budgens' point of view, this is probably not unwelcome. A bit of controversy gets their name in the papers, and if it's a controversy that most people will look at and decide they're not worried about it, then all the better. A quick look through the comments section for this article on the Guardian website will confirm where the balance of opinion lies.
Nevertheless, it is a snapshot of what can happen - genuinely difficult dilemmas when something that is demonstrably right on the grounds of sustainability fails to gain acceptance amongst the broader public.
And, interestingly for Budgens, it is one of its franchised shops that sells squirrel meat. We have seen before how individual franchisees can run away with your corporate reputation if you're not paying attention. The fact that this case is probably a storm in a teacup doesn't avoid the principle.
When asked about it, Budgens effectively said 'it was a franchisee decision, nothing to do with us'. That is the wrong answer. They should have said 'we have a clause in our franchise agreement that establishes things that should not be sold, and this doesn't breach it. And we think squirrel meat is very sustainable, and tastes terrific (by all accounts) and since it sells well in North London we might well roll it out elsewhere".
Do they have that clause in their franchise agreement? Dunno. If they don't, it's about time they started looking at it.
Posted on: 29 Jul 2010
Tags: CSR franchises squirrels corporate social responsibility Mallen Baker
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