We captured the horrifying final moments of thousands of pigs at C&K Meats, located in Suffolk, an industrial-sized slaughterhouse supplying major supermarkets including Tesco, Co-op, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, Asda, Lidl and Aldi. Renowned for being RSPCA Assured and Red Tractor approved and under surveillance of CCTV, the site also kills pigs on behalf of so-called ‘higher welfare’ free-range companies like Peddars Pigs, BQP, The Jolly Hog and Wayland Farms. The failings are systemic and no level of welfare is going to protect animals as they are herded towards their death. Our secret footage uncovers the grave reality of what pigs face in their final moments inside slaughterhouses. As featured in The Mirror.
“There is nothing we do for these pigs that is for their benefit. Everything, from the minute they get here, is towards them dying.” - C&K Meats worker
The filming took place during an annual audit, when the abattoir will have been on its ‘best’ behaviour. But in reality, even the ‘best’ treatment that these pigs received was frightful. From the moment the pigs arrived until they were gassed, they experienced nothing but terror. Pigs were transported for as long as five hours without food and water. As they arrived and were unloaded, they were shouted at and hit with paddles. Others were hit in the face, forcing them to leave the trailer. As they were rallied into pens, they ran desperately to water; they had overheated in the crowded trailers on their way to the abattoir
As trailers arrived to the site early, or as equipment failed, the trucks were sent away for hours at a time, leaving the animals without food and water for even longer and at risk of heat stress.
Pigs arrived dead inside the transporters, having died on their way to the abattoir. They were dragged out and their companions forced to walk by their dead bodies. In 2023, almost 800 pigs died on the way to slaughterhouses. Even within C&K Meats, the stress became too much for some pigs. One died of a heart attack as she was moved between lairages; a worker mocked her and took amusement from her cruel fate. Another pig became so distressed that their body shook violently, frozen in terror. She was later shot and her throat slit in the unloading area. As her body writhed on the concrete floor, other pigs were forced to walk by her, an experience so frightening it’s hard to fathom.
“The video shows some poor practice which needs to be addressed. During unloading several lame pigs and pigs otherwise apparently unfit to travel (respiratory distress, large umbilical hernia, etc) were shown. The welfare of these animals is likely to have been compromised prior to loading but transportation is likely to have exacerbated any problems. These animals should not have been transported. There are several instances where the use of the paddle for short periods verged on the excessive” - Alick Simmons, Former UK Government Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer and Former Food Standards Agency Veterinary Director
A different pig became ‘downed’ – unable to walk – in a pen and was later killed and left flailing in their own blood. The pig’s body was then slapped with a ‘slap marker’, a device used to tattoo pigs’ bodies for identification later in the processing line, bringing into question whether this pig’s body would still enter the human food system. The blood inside the pens wasn’t cleaned until the following day, leaving other animals surrounded by the stench of death.
Is the nation’s beloved bacon sandwich really worth their suffering?
As pigs arrived at C&K Meats, many showed obvious signs of an array of painful health issues. From protruding hernias to deep inflamed sores to grossly overgrown feet to bloody scratches to bitten off tails, the lifetime of suffering and abuses within the farms that they came from was evident. Many were covered in lacerations and bite marks showing that fighting and unsafe conditions were common on the farms, including those who were transported from free-range sites. Their bodies were smothered in spray paint, reflecting their treatment as commodities, rather than individual sentient animals.
Pigs were loaded into holding pens, at a much higher capacity than what the pens allowed for, some at over double the stated capacity. This created a deluge of urine and faeces, leaving pigs lying in their own excrement on soaked, filthy concrete floors. Heat stress was evident too in pigs who left the trailers and those within the holding pens. Individuals also frothed at the mouth and panted heavily in a desperate, and futile, attempt to cool down.
As they were moved out of the pens, workers beat them with paddles and boards, sending panic through the groups of terrified animals. Tensions rose as the animals became scared. The automated machinery by the gassing chamber frightened many of the pigs; they had nowhere to escape to. It was a one-way route towards a painful death. Gassing pigs is an excruciatingly painful method of CO2 stunning, commonly known to be aversive (causing them high levels of pain) as they slowly suffocate. It is deemed ‘humane’ by the pig industry. Approximately 86% of pigs in the UK are gassed – around 10 million pigs every year. The pigs are trapped inside a gondola where the oxygen levels are dropped and other gases like CO2 are pumped in. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has stated that gassing “causes pain, fear and respiratory distress”, and DEFRA has made a similar statement.
Moments like this will never be shown on TV adverts, on the company’s website or down supermarket aisles.
CCTV is mandatory inside English, Scottish and Welsh slaughterhouses. It has been sold as a welfare-washing tool in an attempt to give more trust in our broken food system. The government’s own post-implementation review has stated that it has improved animal welfare and resulted in a decrease of non-compliances. Despite this, our undercover investigations across five slaughterhouses have shown time and time again that abuses, breaches and suffering are rife within any abattoir that we enter.
In 2023, only 10 serious legal breaches were reported a day across 229 abattoirs. This shows a huge amount of underreporting, as evidenced by our investigative work. Even when non-compliances are reported, very little is done about them. 43% of ‘severe’ incidents (the most serious category) resulted in verbal advice (between 2010-2020). 2023 data showed that only 28 incidents were referred for investigation from 3,843 non-compliance reports – that’s less than 1%. The same was seen in 2022.
Industry data reveals only 0.04% of animals that go through slaughterhouses were affected by non-compliances, yet our investigations show repeated abuses, commonplace legislative breaches and a culture of violence, reflecting a grave under reporting in industry data.
In her capacity as a specialist in animal welfare law, Barrister Ayesha Smart provided her legal expert opinion on our investigation footage.
“Having reviewed the footage over a number of days at C&K Meats, there are multiple and clear breaches of the statutory instruments designed to protect animal welfare. Many of the pigs in the footage show significant degrees of stress, above and beyond that expected in a slaughterhouse environment. Recurrent breaches relate directly to physical abuse of the pigs, acts in contravention of good practice which cause the pigs undue distress, and neglect of their levels of pain and suffering.” - Ayesha Smart, Crown Court Judge
UK abattoirs have been offered two large funding packages from the government since December 2023. The first being the Small Abattoir Fund, which provides £4 million of funding to small slaughterhouses. The package has been promoted as supporting smaller abattoirs to improve productivity, enhance animal welfare and to encourage innovation and new technologies. The second is the Farming Investment Fund, which has offered £3 million for the creation of new and mobile abattoirs, as part of a larger package announced by the government in May 2024.
This is taxpayers’ money directly funding slaughter! It is being used to uphold a violent system which inhibits the progression of a just and sustainable society. This cannot continue.
We must end the public funding of slaughterhouses. Members of the public are unknowingly funding these abuses and until the UK government stops providing monetary packages to the industry, we cannot see societal progression. The mere presence of abattoirs violates social progress but we can be the generation to see all slaughterhouses close their doors. We can be the generation that ends this horror.
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