Peperami - 150% of an animal?

Did you know that Peperami lists 150% meat as one of its ingredients? Is it because it comes from the fifth dimension? Can we blame EU quotas? Or is it simply some kind of supermeat... like they used to put in Whiskas? It's a modern mystery, solved after the jump.

Look on the back of a Peperami and you'll see the list of ingredients: Pork (150%), Salt, Glucose, Spices, Flavour Enhancers (Monosodium Glutamate, Sodium 5' Ribonucleotides), Garlic Powder, Preservative (Sodium Nitrite).

Rewind a minute - 150% pork?

A curious brother in Scoffness wrote to Peperami to ask why, and got this reply.

Hello from Peperami

Dear XXXX, Thank you for your recent query regarding the confusing labelling on Peperami. Under the labelling laws for processed meat products like sausages, we are required to state the amount of raw meat as a percentage of the finished product -including all the other ingredients like spices, salt etc. For raw sausages, the meat percentage will be less than 100% because other ingredients are added during manufacture. However, Peperami is a cured sausage and weight is lost through evaporation of water during manufacture. This means that the weight of the raw meat we put in before cooking and curing is higher than the weight of the finished Peperami that is sold. The meat content is therefore, more than 100%. As an example - a 25g Peperami is made with 27g of raw meat. I hope that this has helped and if you require any further information orassistance, then please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards, Chantal Barnard

Who knew you were getting 27g of meat for your 25g? Box it up and put it in the solved file, Mulder! We're outta here!