Boycott Lemieux

Why? I don't agree with the supply or purchase of farmed fur - absolutely. But Le Mieux took suitable steps to recall the item as soon as the fraud - not theirs - was pointed out. Many companies have been duped by suppliers into products which were not what the end seller thought they were. Le Mieux took the correct steps. At least give them credit for that.

Fake fur is no environmental picnic either. Buy high quality welfare standards assured fur - as you would your meat I hope. Or use a ribbon or a bit of wool or something instead.
 
Shay said:
Why? I don't agree with the supply or purchase of farmed fur - absolutely. But Le Mieux took suitable steps to recall the item as soon as the fraud - not theirs - was pointed out. Many companies have been duped by suppliers into products which were not what the end seller thought they were. Le Mieux took the correct steps. At least give them credit for that.

Fake fur is no environmental picnic either. Buy high quality welfare standards assured fur - as you would your meat I hope. Or use a ribbon or a bit of wool or something instead.
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No, they sent the product back to the supplier and asked for a replacement. They should have found another supplier as soon as the fraud was detected. For a brand whose target audience is animal lovers, this is a spectacularly nonchalant response.

I, for one, will buy elsewhere.

You are right about faux fur, it’s nasty. However, the fact that the real stuff can be produced more cheaply than faux makes me shudder to think of the conditions in which that happens. I’d quite like to see the whole fur craze die down now. Best stick to wool pom-poms I agree.
 
NZJenny said:
Yet you buy leather sourced from farmed animals.
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This, considering calf leather is what everyone wants now, so that cannot even be considered a by product. Not that most leather is a by product of an animal produced for meat anyway.

Surely we would be better using sustainable farmed fur for good sources the same as we would source our food.
 
fur Is an odd thing, if it’s farmed properly, then there should be no real issue with it. Similarly I believe it would help if there was a market for stuff like rabbit fur, so when mr farmer shoots a load of bunnies they would be doing something useful and not being wasted
 
Templebar said:
This, considering calf leather is what everyone wants now, so that cannot even be considered a by product. Not that most leather is a by product of an animal produced for meat anyway.

Surely we would be better using sustainable farmed fur for good sources the same as we would source our food.
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Do you think the cheap fur produced by China fraudulently sold as faux fur was produced with anywhere near the sort of welfare standards that British farmed animals are?

That is the difference, surely.
 
Templebar said:
This, considering calf leather is what everyone wants now, so that cannot even be considered a by product. Not that most leather is a by product of an animal produced for meat anyway.

Surely we would be better using sustainable farmed fur for good sources the same as we would source our food.
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Calf leather is a byproduct of the dairy industry in this country. What do you think happens to veal calves? You can buy it at a premium price at UK tanneries.

I really hate seeing real fur being sold anywhere so already boycott fur products whether they are le mieux or otherwise. Fake fur looks horrible and horrible to produce.

There are so many ways you can research and make choices to suit your moral standards.
 
There was a similar kerfuffle in the US when I was living there; supposed fake-fur trim on Chinese manufactured clothing was found to be real fur, back in about 2007. When you Google for stories like this, they seem to pop up every year from 2007 onwards.

We've become spoiled by cheap manufacturing in countries with low labour costs and weak environmental protection.

Companies in those countries can pay poverty wages and externalise costs by dumping waste; China is starting to tighten its environmental protection regulations, now that the problem is getting too big to ignore and that the people are becoming more vocal about holding government to account (but there's a long, long way to go, yet) and labour costs are increasing as the huge pool of under-employed people of working age dwindles.

But manufacturing just shifts to another location, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam... I suppose Myanmar will join in soon.

So many people in the affluent West prefer to spend €50 on something that would cost €150 if it was made here, so that they can buy a Double Skinny Latte every morning at €5 a pop, phone and cable TV subscriptions at €30 a month each...

I try to avoid, as far as I can, stuff made in those countries. Sometimes its unavoidable (try buying computers or components, or a cellphone, made elsewhere), but these are usually things I buy once every three to ten years.

I can just about limit my clothing purchases to what is made in Europe, using the term loosely (including Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia) and excluding some things (like one or two items of ski clothing that I buy very rarely).

I'd rather, for example, spend €200 on a pair of shoes made in Europe, that will last easily for ten years (and probably longer) and resole them every twelve months , than spend €80 on a pair made in Indonesia or Vietnam and replace them after six months.

  • European shoes: €200 to buy, €40 resole every year, total over ten years is €600, or €60 per year.
  • Far-eastern shoes : €80 every six months, total over ten years is €1600, or €160 a year.

Of course, this also requires a certain discipline in saving up for a new pair of shoes, for the bigger outlay of €200, rather than putting €80 on a credit card and paying it off next month... but that's another problem.
 
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Templebar said:
This, considering calf leather is what everyone wants now, so that cannot even be considered a by product. Not that most leather is a by product of an animal produced for meat anyway.

Surely we would be better using sustainable farmed fur for good sources the same as we would source our food.
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There isn't exactly a market for bull calves so I guess that would be a good option for them
 
webble said:
There isn't exactly a market for bull calves so I guess that would be a good option for them
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This is an interesting (and very short) blog post.

I don't know what the market for veal is like in the UK. When I was a kid, we never ate it, but I don't know if that's because of the price, or that it was just never offered for sale in the butchers' shops where my family went.

Here is France veal is easy to find and I don't think it's more expensive than red beef.

Down in the South West, there's a kind of veal called "gros veau du Limousin" that's from a calf left to suckle from its mother in the field for longer than usual. Pale veal comes from animals slaughtered at three to five and a half months old, who are still suckling.

I think the "gros veau" (literally "big calf") stays in the field until it starts to eat grass. The animal is slaughtered at around the time it weans and starts to eat only grass, so the meat is a deeper pink than most veal. I can't find any documentation on this at the moment, just relying on what I remember from conversations with butchers in the Haute-Vienne and Dordogne...
 
Keith_Beef said:
This is an interesting (and very short) blog post.

I don't know what the market for veal is like in the UK. When I was a kid, we never ate it, but I don't know if that's because of the price, or that it was just never offered for sale in the butchers' shops where my family went.

Here is France veal is easy to find and I don't think it's more expensive than red beef.

Down in the South West, there's a kind of veal called "gros veau du Limousin" that's from a calf left to suckle from its mother in the field for longer than usual. Pale veal comes from animals slaughtered at three to five and a half months old, who are still suckling.

I think the "gros veau" (literally "big calf") stays in the field until it starts to eat grass. The animal is slaughtered at around the time it weans and starts to eat only grass, so the meat is a deeper pink than most veal. I can't find any documentation on this at the moment, just relying on what I remember from conversations with butchers in the Haute-Vienne and Dordogne...
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We have Rose Veal over here which is similar .
 
Keith_Beef said:
This is an interesting (and very short) blog post.

I don't know what the market for veal is like in the UK. When I was a kid, we never ate it, but I don't know if that's because of the price, or that it was just never offered for sale in the butchers' shops where my family went.

Here is France veal is easy to find and I don't think it's more expensive than red beef.

Down in the South West, there's a kind of veal called "gros veau du Limousin" that's from a calf left to suckle from its mother in the field for longer than usual. Pale veal comes from animals slaughtered at three to five and a half months old, who are still suckling.

I think the "gros veau" (literally "big calf") stays in the field until it starts to eat grass. The animal is slaughtered at around the time it weans and starts to eat only grass, so the meat is a deeper pink than most veal. I can't find any documentation on this at the moment, just relying on what I remember from conversations with butchers in the Haute-Vienne and Dordogne...
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Yes we have rose veal here, I was more thinking of Jersey Bull calfs or extremer holsteins
 
MagicMelon said:
The problem is its actually quite hard to avoid leather. I dont believe non-leather bridles are accepted under rules for competitions for example? Whereas I can definately avoid fur.
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There's no requirement for bridles to be made of leather in BD, as far as I'm aware. There's loads of synthetic bridles available on the market these days; those that are obviously "fake", but also those which are very similar to actual leather. I don't see stewards at competitions touching, feeling, smelling or testing the material to judge whether it's leather or not.
 
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