Looking forward to steak and kidney pie

Whilst we do most of our food shopping at Mercadona on the Crevillente road, we do like to buy some of our meat from the nearby Reeve's butchers. The shop, which has been open about two years now, is a great source for things like burgers, pies and sausages along with New Zealand lamb, thick cut pork chops and choice fillet steaks. They also sell seasonal products like mince pies and Christmas cake.

We called in yesterday to buy a piece of gammon, some sausages and a couple of pies. They had the gammon along with plenty of other cuts of fresh meat but no sausages and no pies.

The explanation was that they'd had a visit from Health and Safety who told them they could not sell meat products like pies and sausages without proper labeling in Spanish. There was also a problem with selling frozen meats so their chest freezer had been sealed up with tape. The only meat they had on sale were fresh cuts, labeled in both English and Spanish.

Obviously any Spaniard shopping there would want to know what they were buying. A label that says "Huddersfield black pudding" (just typing that makes my mouth water) or "gala pie" won't mean much to a torreviejense. We understand the problem, we just hope they can sort it out soon. We want our sausages back!