How many legs does a pata-negra pig have? Answer: eight, if you divide the total amount of said hams on sale by the pig population of Andalucía. The Junta de Andalucía did their sums and came up with something fishy about the Iberian cured hams market; and an investigation discovered 17 tonnes of bogus produce.

The Agricultural Board of the Junta informed the Sevilla-based, Atrisa Sabor Ibérico SL that it would be facing a stiff fine for ‘deficient labelling’ of the said Iberian hams and ordered them to hand over all relevant data corresponding to 2009.

It took three inspectors three full days to inspect all the meat products and resulted in 17,400 kilos of cured ham being confiscated, amongst it were even products from Italy, falsely labelled as Jamón Ibérico – is nothing sacred?

This whole thing kicked off because there are just under 900,000 Iberian pigs in Andalucía, 500 of which are acorn fed, top-grade animals, whereas on sale there are supposedly top-quality hams belonging to just over one million pigs… Evidently, somebody was being a rotter with the trotters; hence the investigation.