Tesco facing whale meat boycott

SUPERMARKETS giant Tesco faces a consumer backlash over its refusal to stop selling whale meat in its stores in Japan.

The UK group has been selling the minke meat in 32 of a chain of 78 convenience stores it bought last year.

Now, Greenpeace and the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) have launched a campaign to make UK customers aware of Tesco's stance - and want to persuade the firm to ban whale meat from its shops.

An EIA spokesman said: 'If Tesco does not respond to stop the sale of whale-meat products, then we would seriously consider calling on the public to show their disgust by boycotting UK stores.'

But Jonathan Church, Tesco's external communications director, said: 'Whale meat is on sale at a number of our C Two-Network convenience stores and we have no plans to remove it.

'We believe it would be wrong to impose our Western values on Japanese customers against their wishes. And Japan has a culture of eating whale meat.'

Japan kills up to 3,000 minke whales a year for 'research'. The whale meat sold by the Tesco-owned stores comes from companies that own shares in the fleets used for 'scientific whaling research'.

Environmental investigators believe some of the whale meat sold by the Tesco stores may actually come from dolphins and porpoises.

What raises most concern among campaigners is the method of hunting. Even using a modern harpoon it can take 90 minutes to kill a whale.