- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
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.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?
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.