Three of the UK’s largest supermarkets have suspended provides from a Lincolnshire pig farm after footage filmed covertly by an animal rights organisation appeared to point out staff kicking piglets and hitting them with boards and paddles.
The footage additionally steered the injured pigs with open wounds had been packed into pens lined in faeces, with some left lame and writhing in ache.
Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s mentioned they’d “instantly” suspended provides from Somerby Prime Farm, which additionally reportedly provides Morrisons, after changing into conscious of the footage.
The farm was purchased by Cranswick, Britain’s largest pork provider, in late 2023 and was audited and licensed by the British animal welfare and meals assurance scheme Crimson Tractor in October 2024.
The animal rights group the Animal Justice Venture (AJP) says it filmed the abuse between Could 2024 and January 2025.
It claims cameras hidden throughout the farm over this era confirmed legally required welfare checks had been typically ignored, seen accidents and struggling, corresponding to a pig who was bleeding from a ruptured hernia, with official inspections of 1,000 pigs taking as little as 90 seconds.
There have been “a number of botched killings of lame piglets”, which left them in agony for greater than 30 seconds after being shot, in response to the Mail on Sunday, which obtained the undercover footage. Employees would normally “hit pigs with boards, paddles and their fists, intentionally concentrating on areas corresponding to their snout and eyes”.
One piglet, which “confirmed clear indicators of maximum ache”, was reportedly left dying for 33 hours as different piglets cannibalised an open wound. “He had no escape from being eaten alive,” mentioned the narrator of the movie revealed on the AJP web site, claiming that staff ignored the pig’s squeals of misery.
“Throughout our filming, Somerby Prime [Farm] was audited by Crimson Tractor,” the narrator mentioned. “But simply two weeks later, once we returned, we had been met with the identical squalid circumstances.”
Crimson Tractor mentioned it couldn’t confirm this, however responded to the “deeply distressing” footage by suspending Somerby Prime Farm’s certification with “rapid impact” and referring the farm to the federal government animal welfare regulator, the Animal and Plant Well being Company.
“Crimson Tractor is conducting a radical evaluate of each present and historic footage, compliance and staffing on the farm,” the organisation mentioned in an announcement. “The farm will stay unassured if Crimson Tractor will not be happy our requirements are met.”
They mentioned footage had solely been introduced to Crimson Tractor this month. “This delay is regarding and means that these activists have prioritised ideology over defending animal welfare. Crimson Tractor offers a free nameless whistleblowing service and we actively encourage anybody with issues to lift these in order that we will examine instantly.”
In an announcement, Cranswick mentioned the well being and welfare of its pigs was the corporate’s “highest precedence”: “We’re horrified to see the unacceptable therapy of pigs at Somerby Prime Farm, [which was] traditionally recorded and dropped at our consideration this week.”
The corporate added that since Could, when covert footage filmed by AJP confirmed obvious abuse at one other of its farms, North Moor Farm, it has put in CCTV in any respect its indoor pig farms, recruited 5 new welfare officers, retrained all its farm staff and commissioned an unbiased veterinarian-led evaluate throughout all its farms.
It mentioned it had launched an investigation as quickly because the AJP shared the footage: “The workers concerned are not with the enterprise.”
Morrisons didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
