Porky Lights Sausages – Slimming World Syn Change (Update 3 March)

A further update from Slimming World with regards to Porky Lights Sausages:

 

We think it’s important, after what’s been a turbulent week, with a lot of information and misinformation in the press and on social media, to give you and our members a recap on where we are at with Porky Lights sausages. There are some important facts and figures behind this story which need to be borne in mind.

We’ve been aware, of course, of how popular Porky Lights sausages are with members – however, during a tasting session, we were slightly concerned by the apparent level of fat in the samples we tried. Because of this, one of our trusted suppliers sent some samples of Porky Lights for testing in a professional laboratory. We now have several test reports which show various samples of the sausages to have materially higher levels of fat than those claimed on the packs: between 14.2g/100g and 19.1g/100g. We have faced criticism from Porky Lights’ manufacturers for using a third party to do this work – however, we have no reason whatsoever to doubt the accuracy of the tests.

We contacted the manufacturer of Porky Lights, G White & Co., to let them know our results. They were extremely concerned, because they also had test evidence (which they shared with us) which showed that the sausages were at the levels stated on the pack.

After serious consideration – faced with such a heavy weight of conflicting evidence about the fat content of the sausages – we decided that by far the safest option – to protect our members’ weight losses – was to withdraw the sausages from the database, until we had a chance to investigate further. And we felt we needed to advise members that we couldn’t guarantee that the sausages should be counted as half a Syn, and based on the results we had seen, it would be best to count the sausages as we would count an average pork sausage, as 4.5 Syns.

Because of the furore this caused on social media, the story was picked up by the national media – this was never our intention. This caused G White & Co. to respond by accusing other manufacturers of sabotage.

We have no alternative now until we have consistent and accurate information to provide to our members (which will include more independent testing) to keep the sausages off the database. We feel sure that G White & Co. will be conducting their own tests.

Once we have that information, we’ll be able to decide whether Porky Lights are consistently at the fat level they claim (and there was, for instance, a rogue or mislabeled batch as some people are suggesting).

We know that some people are accusing Slimming World of deliberately ‘penalising’ Porky Lights so that we can sell more of our own sausages. Nothing is further from the truth! There are many low Syn sausages featured on our database, and if further information establishes that these initial tests weren’t typical, then we’ll be happy to confirm the half Syn value for them. We feel certain you’ll understand – and will help our members to understand – that any action that Slimming World takes comes purely from a desire for members to have all the information they need to lose weight successfully.

We’ll keep you updated over the next week or so to let you know the results of our testing.