JOHN CRAVEN
A new campaign gives a boost to much-needed small local abattoirs.
“Further small abattoir closures could be a real threat to livelihoods”
Not that many years ago, a farmer driving some livestock a few miles down country lanes to the small local abattoir would have been a common sight. Now, due to the economies of modern-day food production, it’s rarely seen. Instead, animals get transported longer distances to large slaughterhouses.
In the past decade, a third of our remaining small abattoirs went out of business, leaving only around 60 across the UK. It’s been a worrying decline for everyone involved in locally sourced food: farmers, craft butchers, customers and, of course, those who run these threatened outposts of traditional rural industry. But now action is being taken.
Recently, a campaign – called the Abattoir Sector Group – was launched to promote “a thriving network of sustainable and local abattoirs”. It’s backed by some top-drawer organisations including the Sustainable Food Trust, National Craft Butchers, Animal Health and Welfare Board for England and the Prince’s Countryside Trust.
Patrick Holden of the Sustainable Food Trust, which has been calling for more support for three years, says: “Without a UK-wide network of small abattoirs, it will be impossible for farmers to deliver local, welfare-friendly meat with minimum distances to slaughter, which millions of people are now demanding.”
At big processing plants, the meat goes directly into the national supply chain, but small local abattoirs offer a ‘private kill’ service where farmers get their meat returned to them to sell as they wish – in their own shops, at markets, or though box schemes. This adds muchneeded value to a farm’s output at a time when direct subsidies are soon to be phased out. Any further abattoir closures could be a real threat to livelihoods as farmers increasingly seek this kind of diversification.
John Mettrick, whose family has run a small abattoir and butchery in the Peak District for five generations, tells me that 170 farmers within a 35-mile radius used their services last year. That, according to John, meant a daunting amount of paperwork – one reason many small abattoirs have closed.
“At the moment there’s a one-size-fits-all policy, which means places like ours have a disproportionate amount of regulations and form-filling, and that has to stop. If we can tackle the issues of regulation, paperwork and waste – hides and skins were once a massive source of income for us but are now worthless and thrown into skips – then the future is good because the public want local meat and without small abattoirs they can’t really have that. The public are driving this.”
The coronavirus pandemic played a role, as more people working and eating at home led to a surge in demand for local food. Lockdown made it easier for shoppers to put into practice what had previously been good intentions. “We’re hoping that people don’t drop back into the old habit of doing a one-stop supermarket shop and buying on price rather than provenance,” says John.
I’ve heard of only one small abattoir closing during the pandemic (around eight closed a year before) and a new one is on its way. At the time of writing, the UK’s first mobile abattoir, built in Italy at a cost of around £200,000 with the help (just in time!) of an EU grant, should have arrived in Gloucestershire. It will set up at local hubs and call on farms, meaning even fewer food miles. Will it start a trend?
Watch John on Countryfile, Sunday evenings on BBC One.