How Hare Majesty fell foul of pâté bureaucrats

THE QUEEN was at the centre a trading standards investigation last week after her Sandringham gift shop was found to be selling a range of pâté which breaches food labelling regulations.

Norfolk County Council officers confirmed that they were ticking off the Royal estate for not printing its address on labels of jars of the meat delicacy.

Failing to include the address of a ‘food business operator’ is a breach of labelling regulations, punishable by a fine of up to £5,000 if an ‘improvement notice’ is ignored.

Conservation groups also criticised the inclusion of wild hare pâté in the range, as brown hares are seen as an endangered species in the UK. Also in the range are pheasant with Armagnac, pork, duck, wild boar and venison with Burgundy.

Council staff were alerted by a shopper who bought one of the 180g jars, displayed prominently on a table inside the traditional gift shop.

Officials also looked into claims that the labels potentially breached rules by not

HARE WE GO AGAIN:

Queen broke rules before making clear the pâté was made in France, but that was dismissed.

There is normally no requirement for a meat product to show a place of origin unless its label gives a misleading impression that it comes from a different country. The shopper said the use of the Sandringham name accompanied by the estate’s logo with a crown on the label suggested it was British. But trading standards ruled that the labels, which state that the pâté was ‘specially prepared for the Sandringham estate’, did not imply it was made in the UK. A Norfolk County Council spokesman said: ‘We will always look at any concerns raised by the public about food labelling.’

It is not the first time the Queen has been accused of breaking trading standards rules on her 20,000-acre estate, where she is currently spending her Christmas break.

In 2001, it emerged that timber was being sold at her Sandringham sawmill in imperial feet and inches, with metric measurements only in small print.

Norfolk trading standards officials threatened to bring a prosecution if the mill failed to change to using metres as its more prominent measurement.