SUMMER IMPACT REPORT: APRIL-JUNE 2021

In April, Animal Equality released an investigation into an intensive pig farm in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, linked to one of the UK’s largest meat producers, Pilgrim’s Pride UK. The farm, P&G Sleigh Pig Unit, is owned by senior industry figure Philip Sleigh, who was a board member of the public body Quality Meat Scotland, a farm welfare assurance scheme. Responsible for setting industry standards, he had been appointed to his position by the Scottish Government.

Our footage revealed:

• Piglets being hammered to death.
• Pigs gasping and showing signs of consciousness after multiple blows to the head.
• Sick and underweight piglets killed by being slammed on the concrete floor. 
• Mother pigs with severe prolapses after years of forced impregnation, causing their internal organs to painfully hang outside of their bodies. 

The investigation achieved major media attention, with the news reported in The Times, The Independent, the Scottish Daily Mail, and on the front page of Scotland’s most widely-read newspaper. Our petition calling on governments to increase legal protections for pigs also received widespread support, including from Hollywood actor Karen Gillan. As a result of our findings, Philip Sleigh resigned from his position on the Quality Meat Scotland board, the farm lost its welfare accreditation, and major supermarkets Tesco and Lidl dropped the farm as one of its suppliers. A formal criminal investigation is now underway.

Since March, Animal Equality UK has been working alongside fellow animal charities to call on the UK’s major supermarkets to sign the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), a set of welfare standards which eliminate some of the worst suffering for chickens raised for meat.

In April, we began focusing campaigning efforts on Morrisons, following its misleading announcement that it would launch a new range of chicken meat which met BCC standards, instead of meeting the BCC across all chicken meat products that it sells. Animal Equality’s online activists have been relentlessly contacting Morrisons and raising awareness on social media about the suffering chickens face and the urgent need for change.

TV conservationist Chris Packham has also been involved in the campaign, having launched a petition calling on all major UK supermarkets to sign the BCC. The petition currently has over 191,000 signatures. If all UK supermarkets implement the BCC it will impact an estimated 800 million chickens every year.

*Image representative of typical factory farm conditions

In June, Animal Equality Italy released a shocking investigation inside an abattoir owned by the company Zema Srl, an industrial slaughterhouse near Cremona, where around 3,000 pigs are killed every week. The footage revealed systematic violations of animal welfare regulations and cases of cruel killing that were promptly reported to the relevant authorities by filing three complaints.

The investigation revealed terrible abuses including:

• Pigs being pushed out of vehicles with rods as well as being kicked and beaten. The animals were forced off trucks even in the absence of unloading ramps.
• Pigs arriving at the slaughterhouse already dead because of diseases or because of poor transport conditions. Others suffered from severe cysts, umbilical hernias and lameness related to accidents, infections or malformations.
• Severe mistreatment and extremely cruel killings: the footage shows one piglet being repeatedly shot before being killed by a worker.
• Ineffective or inadequate stunning: several animals were killed while still conscious and showed clear signs of breathing and movement for minutes before their throats were cut.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a challenge brought by the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) against California’s Prop 12, which is one of the strongest animal welfare laws in history. The measure bans cages of any kind for hens, veal crates for calves, and tiny cages called gestation crates which are used to confine mother pigs. The measure also prohibits the sale of products coming from other US states that do not meet the same standards. The Court’s decision not to take up the case means the law will go into effect as scheduled on January 1, 2022. Animal Equality was among the groups that intervened in the case to help defend this important law against NAMI’s attack.

Also in June, Nevada became the ninth US state to ban the use of cages in the egg industry. Animal Equality actively worked on this campaign, mobilising our network of activists in Nevada to take strategic legislative actions supporting the bill. In addition to banning the use of cages, this new law will also ban the sale of eggs from caged hens, wherever they originate. While cage-free does not mean cruelty-free, this marks important progress and will impact roughly 3.5 million hens per year once the law comes into effect in 2024.