Monday 16 January 2023
According to a statement on the side of a 2kg bag of Silver Spoon sugar, pink-footed geese favour foraging in the sugar beet crops of East Anglia. Indeed, according to the statement 25% of all pink-footed geese in the world do so. The statement suggests that the geese have a sweet tooth. Hmm!
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/pink-footed-goose/
According to the RSPB website:
"The pink-footed goose is a medium-sized goose, smaller than a mute swan but bigger than a mallard. It is pinkish grey with a dark head and neck, a pink bill and pink feet and legs.
This species does not breed in the UK, but large numbers of birds spend the winter here, arriving from their breeding grounds in Spitsbergen, Iceland and Greenland. Numbers in England are on the increase, particularly in Norfolk, probably due to better protection at winter roosts.
What they eat: grain, winter cereals, potatoes and grass.
Where they can be seen: near large estuaries, such as on the east Scottish coast, The Wash, the Ribble and the Solway, or on surrounding farmland where birds go in the day to feed."
From the foregoing, it does not sound remotely like the world's pink-footed geese make a bee-line for the sugar-beet fields of Norfolk, but that they eat whatever edible vegetation happens to be around where they over-winter.
So maybe Silver Spoon is attempting to soften its image by suggesting that monocropping sugar beet helps the pink-footed goose. Who would have guessed?
Since 1972, Silver Spoon has been the retail brand of the British Sugar Corporation. British Sugar processes all sugar beet grown in the United Kingdom, and produces about two-thirds of the United Kingdom's quota of sugar. The company was sold to Associated British Foods in 1991. Associated British Foods plc is a British multinational food processing and retailing company headquartered in London. Associated British Foods is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2021, its revenue was just shy of £14 billion.
I guess that £14 billion businesses need to find ways for individual customers to relate warmly to its products.
