Lack of Small Abattoirs

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
The way this thread reads, there seems to be a market for locally produced and slaughtered meat and there seems to be farmers who want to supply it, its just the small slaughterhouse part that's lacking?
So why don't a group of local farmers build one if the demand is there?
How long do you have to train and what's involved in becoming qualified as a slaughterman?
Surely the problem is there for you to fix?
Small and medium slaughterhouses have been closing here for decades. Mostly they are caught by being too small to compete with the big 4 but too big to survive on the available private kills.

As an example of costs, when the EU mandated that export slaughterhouses had to be fully flyproof from the point that hide cones off to the lorries being loaded the UK authorities decided ALL slaughterhouses must comply. The cost of upgrading the lorry docks for most medium operations was unaffordable even though many never intended to export meat.

One near Royston used to kill around 100 cattle a week plus several hundred pigs and some sheep and closed because their quote to upgrade their lorry dock was £1.2M and they still had almost £1M in debt from the previous rule change.
 

sheepdogtrail

Member
Livestock Farmer
Anyone involved in the slaughter process up until the animal is dead needs to undergo a formal training course and on completion have a certificate of competence issued by the Food Standards Agency. For operatives further down the line, it's a case of basic hygiene training and then on the job for specific tasks.

Personally I am not sure what the requirements are in the UK. I would suspect they are the same as in the USA. I had to go through a course as well. It was a weekend of sitting in a local hotel meeting room with a instructor and others like me. Really just a waste of my time. I had to take a test at the end of the weekend to get my certificate. Additionally, HACCP is now a international standard and all plants will need one. Someone at the plant has to be certified. Again another weekend sitting in a hotel meeting room somewhere followed by a test. All of it cost me $2K USD. It is a requirement, not a request, if you want to operate under federal inspection in this country.

The end result is that I can export to any country on the planet almost any part of a lamb which includes a whole carcass if I want to. The only part I can not export or even keep for human consumption is the lungs. My haggis chefs are unhappy, but my pups are delighted.

Training staff to become skilled takes time. Especially those with no knife skills. A good lead slaughter person (female or male) is critical to teach others sanitary dressing procedures. I find in general, folks who are in the restaurant industry that have had some form of culinary training are spot on. I have folks coming to me every year wanting to help out and learn.

Lambs, goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits, pigs, etc. are easy to pass along to a excited chef residing at a local pub. They will break it down how they want. They should have the skills to do that.

Cattle, is a little more complicated due to the physical size of the animals. They need to be put into primals before they can be delivered to a customer. Unless you have a customer with a fully outfitted cutting room. In any case, someone needs to be a wizard at cut and wrap when it comes to cattle. Otherwise product will spoil. No body wants that. Cold storage is essential for all products.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
That is a damned shame.

Is there no interest from farmers wanting to process their own animals? Who sets the bureaucracy? Is it DEFRA? or is it regulated via local councils.
Welfare rules come from DEFRA. Hygiene rules come from the Food Standards Agency. Veterinary inspectors are regulated by the Animal and Plant Health Agency but are private contractors working for the current national contract holder, Eville & Jones (who are milking the system according to Private Eye magazine), for which the slaughterhouses get the bill.

All of the volume is controlled by the supermarkets and the big 4 processors. It's only niche markets that are open to a small slaughterhouse or new start-up.
 

sheepdogtrail

Member
Livestock Farmer
As an example of costs, when the EU mandated that export slaughterhouses had to be fully flyproof from the point that hide cones off to the lorries being loaded the UK authorities decided ALL slaughterhouses must comply.
I had the same requirements forced on me. I solved the issue before I even opened by building a sliding screen door on the rear of the processing trailer at a cost of $200.00 dollars. Screen door remains closed while processing. I am able to open the door briefly to bring in a new animal. If any flying insects enter I need to deal with them at once. My $1.00 fly swatter does a perfect job. I also had custom built a set of air seals that goes on the cooler trailer and processing trailer interface to keep insects out of both trailers. I could have spent 10's of thousands of dollars to get a industry solution. But instead I spent $800.00 on some custom made foam pads covered in vinyl that are affixed to one trailer with Velcro.

The USDA requirement was no insects in the food processing areas. I solved it cheaply without going to industry standards.
 

mwj

Member
Location
Illinois USA
The thing that would help the small operations, is to even the thru-put. Feast or famine is the death of a small operation. In this country slaughter for home use was very seasonal for peak use. This was pre covid, now there is a wait time of over 1 year!!!!
 

sheepdogtrail

Member
Livestock Farmer
This was pre covid, now there is a wait time of over 1 year!!!!

That sounds about right to me. Which is a shame. These days, no matter where a farmer resides, the only way forward is to not depend on anyone else. Farming is hard enough already. I can't depend on anyone else to help my business.

Farmers need to be market makers, not market participants.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
At a guess same reason they all closed , their used to be three that know of local to me but all pushed out one way or other .

Yep it's not going to make much money, that's why its no good for an independent business to set up, they would have all the cost and have to make a profit to be viable.
Not the case for a group of farmers wanting to kill their own stock and perhaps charge those outside the ownership group that want to use the facility too. It would just be another part of the chain that you own and wouldn't have to make a profit, just cover its costs.
Owning and running a slaughterhouse isn't any different to owning a pack house, grain store, bottling plant or farm shop. Its just another link in the chain.

Why not invest in the future instead of waiting for an outsider to do it?
 

Hilly

Member
Yep it's not going to make much money, that's why its no good for an independent business to set up, they would have all the cost and have to make a profit to be viable.
Not the case for a group of farmers wanting to kill their own stock and perhaps charge those outside the ownership group that want to use the facility too. It would just be another part of the chain that you own and wouldn't have to make a profit, just cover its costs.
Owning and running a slaughterhouse isn't any different to owning a pack house, grain store, bottling plant or farm shop. Its just another link in the chain.

Why not invest in the future instead of waiting for an outsider to do it?
Because I think it’s swimming against the tide , the authority’s etc have killed them off with legislation etc etc because they don’t want them ! And finding qualified staff like looking for needle in a hay stack infact finding any staff these days is hard let alone staff with the right paper work and will turn up to work, the U.K. is fuked because they stifle inovation with bureaucracy , I think of ideas daily but soon as you look into things any further the legislation etc etc etc etc enough to make you spew !
 

delilah

Member
I was disappointed to hear Patrick Holden applaud the Dimbleby report, normally he is more on the money and knows waffle when hears it. His Sustainable Food Trust said the below. Er, no, we don't need a Government review of small abattoirs, that is just kicking the can down the road, yet again. They are right with their final sentence, but the fact that Dimbleby didn't go there shows what a waste of time it all was.


On local food, we were pleased to note the report’s recommendation that, ‘The Government should conduct a review of small abattoirs to ensure that the capacity exists to serve the expected increase in numbers of farms using livestock in their rotations.’ This is a critical issue which must be addressed across the UK and is one we have been campaigning on for some time, most recently as part of the Abattoir Sector Group. In order for many of the report’s recommendations to be viable, the correct supply chain infrastructure must exist to support them. We would therefore go further and recommend a specific strategy to develop and support local and regional food systems, with greater investment in short supply chain infrastructure, as a key part of the National Food Strategy’s wider plan for healthy and sustainable food.
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
It's a pity that all the local ones went before we left the EU, whose rules and regs seem to have been the catalyst for all the closures. That and cheap labour and bigger operations controlled by the supermarkets.
Gavin Strang was the MAFF minister in charge in the 70’s Labour government when the civil service were advising that the country only needed 12 slaughterhouses. The ministry vets enforcing EU legislation gold plated requirements as they always did and the rest is history. There has been no improvement in food safety as a consequence of the introduction and additional expense of employing vets and the Meat Hygiene Service to replace local authority meat inspectors and EHO’s concluded in 1995.
In 1974 Wansdyke and Bath districts in North Somerset had 3 wholesale and 5 small slaughterhouses serving their owners shops, now the only survivor is in the centre of one of the most expensive villages in the Bristol commuter belt.
The food hygiene risk from a slaughterhouse is about the same as a potato store and yet they have to be equipped and operated more like an operating theatre,
It seems policy has been driven by militant vegans rather than considering food miles and animal welfare.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
Because I think it’s swimming against the tide , the authority’s etc have killed them off with legislation etc etc because they don’t want them ! And finding qualified staff like looking for needle in a hay stack infact finding any staff these days is hard let alone staff with the right paper work and will turn up to work, the U.K. is fuked because they stifle inovation with bureaucracy , I think of ideas daily but soon as you look into things any further the legislation etc etc etc etc enough to make you spew !

Yep its an absolute fecking nightmare but at the end of the day if its too hard for a group of farmers with a vested interest, its going to be too hard for everyone, so doing it yourself is the only option.
The trouble is no one wants it because its a bloody awful job. Farm shop, packhouse, farm cafe all good. Slaughterhouse eh no.
Lets face it how many of you would encourage your kids to be a slaughterman, even if it was in the family business?
 

Whitepeak

Member
Livestock Farmer
Sounds like we are very lucky where we are in North Derbyshire. We have an abbatoir that kills cattle, sheep and pigs very local, only 5 or 6 miles away. And I know of a couple more within an hour, one at Glossop who's has been very vocal in highlighting the lack of small abbatoirs, and one the other side of Chesterfield from us. Think there might be a few into Staffordshire as well.

Another disadvantage of less small abbatoirs is the difficulty in finding one to host yfc stock judging events. I remember one year Derbyshire yfc had to host their competition in Staffordshire due to not having a suitable venue, you can imagine how that went down with some members 😂
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
It is a major issue in the south east as the small ones are in need of investment and it is becoming almost impossible to find slaughtermen.
Pigs have the most problems as there are only facilities for them on occasional days.

The one in West Sussex is about to close but hopefully a new operator will take it on. The one in East Sussex needs a lot of investment and is only killing 3 days a week and no pigs.
In Kent there is one small pig abattoir, a very small low throughput place in East Kent and a larger place in West Kent which is mostly geared to the ethnic trade, but is prepared to switch to more local killing, however it also needs significant investment.
In Hampshire there is one family run abattoir but it is in the middle of Farnborough, with poor access and in the centre of the town and really needs to move but it is doubtful if planning could be obtained for a new site!!

It is a catastrophe in that government wants to reduce the distances animals travel and have more local supply, the reality is stark that the infrastructure is falling apart or closing down.
and they all originally closed because of costs of meat hygiene increasing (EU regulations no more meat hygiene service but inspection by a vet)
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Gavin Strang was the MAFF minister in charge in the 70’s Labour government when the civil service were advising that the country only needed 12 slaughterhouses. The ministry vets enforcing EU legislation gold plated requirements as they always did and the rest is history. There has been no improvement in food safety as a consequence of the introduction and additional expense of employing vets and the Meat Hygiene Service to replace local authority meat inspectors and EHO’s concluded in 1995.
In 1974 Wansdyke and Bath districts in North Somerset had 3 wholesale and 5 small slaughterhouses serving their owners shops, now the only survivor is in the centre of one of the most expensive villages in the Bristol commuter belt.
The food hygiene risk from a slaughterhouse is about the same as a potato store and yet they have to be equipped and operated more like an operating theatre,
It seems policy has been driven by militant vegans rather than considering food miles and animal welfare.
And with fewer slaughterhouses, food supply resilience in the face of things like Covid has proved to be far worse, law of unintended consequences in action, 12 big slaughter houses are more likely to be shut, than 120 smaller ones with a pandemic.
 

sheepdogtrail

Member
Livestock Farmer
Here in the states their is a push from the Feds to convert the state only inspected plants into at least interstate plants. The Feds are offering grants to help cover the cost of getting some of the state inspected plants where they could sale product into another state if they wanted to do so. Where as now, state inspected plants are limited on how much they can sale and what they sale and where they sale. Historically, these state inspected plants would butcher animals that where destined to go back to the owner. No retail sales where permitted.

This initiative is a direct response to Covid where a year ago a lot of the larger plants where shut down and the ones that stayed open, where operating on a skeleton crew.

Kiwis for the most part in the larger plants have been using robotics to process for over a decade now. YouTube has a few videos showing how it works. Below is a link to one such example.

 
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Tomo23

Member
Livestock Farmer
Here in the states their is a push from the Feds to convert the state only inspected plants into at least interstate plants. The Feds are offering grants to help cover the cost of getting some of the state inspected plants where they could sale product into another state if they wanted to do so. Where as now, state inspected plants are limited on how much they can sale and what they sale and where they sale. Historically, these state inspected plants would butcher animals that where destined to go back to the owner. No retail sales where permitted.

This initiative is a direct response to Covid where a year ago a lot of the larger plants where shut down and the ones that stayed open, where operating on a skeleton crew.

Kiwis for the most part in the larger plants have been using robotics to process for over a decade now. YouTube has a few videos showing how it works. Below is a link to one such example.


Whether you agree with automation or not, you can't deny that is awesome.
 

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