Lur Berri is a

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

food company in south west

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, created in 1936.

History

In 1936 the

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

cooperative was founded. Until 1965, activity focused on crop production in the

Basque Country Basque Country may refer to: * Basque Country (autonomous community), as used in Spain ( es, País Vasco, link=no), also called , an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain (shown in pink on the map) * French Basque Country o ...

. In 1971, the agricultural cooperative Lur Berri was born from a merger between grain cooperatives in the Basque Country and Lower Navarre. From the 1980s, the cooperative grew quickly. It moved into livestock production (cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry) and acquired a number of cereal wholesalers: Bonnut, Garlin, Espoey, Artix, Clermont, and Coarraze-Nay. The group Lur Berri is active in the

Pyrénées-Atlantiques Pyrénées-Atlantiques (; Gascon Occitan: ''Pirenèus Atlantics''; eu, Pirinio Atlantiarrak or ) is a department in the southwest corner of France and of the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Named after the Pyrenees mountain range and the Atlanti ...

Landes ''Landes'', or ''Lanas'' in Gascon, means moorland or heath. ''Landes'' and ''Lanas'' come from the Latin ''plānus'' meaning “‘flat, even, level, plain’”. They are therefore cognate with the English plain (and plane), the Spanish word '' ...

Hautes-Pyrénées Hautes-Pyrénées (; Gascon/Occitan: ''Nauts Pirenèus / Hauts Pirenèus'' awts piɾeˈnɛʊs es, Altos Pirineos; ca, Alts Pirineus alts piɾiˈneʊs English: Upper Pyrenees) is a department in the region of Occitania, southwestern France. ...

, and most recently, the Tarn-et-Garonne. Lur Berri's mission is to "assure our farmer partners the best value of their products".

2013 meat adulteration scandal

On 14 February 2013, the French government confirmed that Spanghero, a French prepared meat producer of which Lur Berri owns 99%, knowingly sold

horse meat Horse meat forms a significant part of the culinary traditions of many countries, particularly in Eurasia. The eight countries that consume the most horse meat consume about 4.3 million horses a year. For the majority of humanity's early existe ...

labelled as beef in the

2013 meat adulteration scandal The 2013 horse meat scandal was a food industry scandal in parts of Europe in which foods advertised as containing spicy beef were found to contain undeclared or improperly declared horse meat – as much as 100% of the meat content in some ca ...

, and the company's licence was suspended while investigations continued.

References

External links

*{{official, http://www.lurberri.fr Food and drink companies of France Companies based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine French companies established in 1936