French pigs grunt and fart but are also great to eat

Well that's the message pig farmers in northwestern France are trying to get across about the animals they raise to make a living.

screenshot from Les éleveurs de porcs bretons website

Vegetarians move along, this won't appeal.

"Il grogne, il pète, et pourtant grâce à lui vous mangez sain, sûr, bon et breton !" is the slogan the association Les éleveurs de porcs bretons (Brittany pig farmers) has come up with to help update their image.

Or put another way, "It grunts, it farts, but thanks to it you eat healthily, safely, well and what's more it's from Brittany...yes it loses a little something in translation.

It features in an advertising campaign the association will be launching on June 13 with posters being put up in over 400 villages and towns throughout the region and it's an attempt to improve the image of the pig-farming sector among Bretons and at the same time encourage them to eat something so important to the economy of the region.

Appearing on the poster is "David" - a thirty-something, cleancut, boy-next-door type farmer - and alongside him, what TF1 news calls, "A cute piglet reminiscent of the star of the film 'Babe'."

It might be a more than quirky way of trying to counter the image the public has of pig farming, but as the association's press release says that's exactly its intention.

"There's a certain mistrust of pig farmers and that's exactly the kind of public perception we want to change by being deliberately provocative and offbeat," says the release.

"We also want to encourage Bretons to eat a meat that's farmed locally and remind them just how good it is."

And there's also a testimonial from that farmer "David" featured in the campaign.

He is in fact David Riou, a pig farmer from Finistère in the far west of Brittany.

He wants pig farming to break away from the polluting and unhealthy image it has had, but he's aware the sector faces an uphill battle to change peoples' opinions.

"Of course our farms have an impact on the envirnoment and over the years all those headlines about the spreading of manure, nitrates in the water the crisis of green algae have left their mark," he says.

"We've been working for the past 15 years to make sure our environmental impact is lower, but it takes time," he continues.

"For example over the past decade we've lowered by 20 per cent the level of nitrates in our local river, and we mustn't forget that the industry employs around 31,000 people locally."

Pass the apple sauce.