Some poultry slaughterhouses are switching over to using gas to stun the birds- a better alternative that assures stunning as opposed to using the electric water bath (where 50% are not stunned properly before slaughter).
- Fortunately chickens being slaughtered at Plukon Royale no longer have to face the painful procedure of being suspended alive and ineffectively stunned with electricity, as many chickens (like these French ones above) still endure.
Plukon Royale BV is a poultry meat company with slaughterhouses in Belgium (Pingo Poultry), the Netherlands and Germany. In 2005 the company committed itself to geting rid of electrical stunning. Electrical stunning of poultry is an incorrect method for poultry slaughterhouses to be using because when the amper and voltage levels are set high enough to guarantee that the poultry are rendered unconscious, many blood vessels burst. It is well-known that poultry plants are therefore purposely setting the amper and voltage levels lower to avoid loss in meat quality, but as a result an unnacceptable percentage of birds (according to scientific reports it is 50%!) are still conscious when having their carotid artery cut or even heading into the scalding tank.
By 2007 Plukon Royale had switched all of their poultry slaughterhouses over to using gas stunning. A mixture of Co2 and O2 is used, at low concentrations in the beginning to avoid being too aversive to the birds, and then once they start losing consciousness the concentration is increased to render them all completely unconscious. A big advantage in terms of welfare is that the birds do not have to be hung upside down, as done with the electric bath system. Suspending them causes panic and bone fractures.
Eyes on Animals congratulates Plukon Royale for having made this switch. It cost them 800,000 euro in investment per plant, but after 3 years the money invested was returned because they have less meat loss.
Plukon Royale supplies, among other retailers, McDonalds. Yet again, McDonalds proves that it is taking steps to decrease farm animal suffering. McDonalds in the Netherlands and Belgium has also stopped with pig castration. Bravo!
The Netherlands: Dutch supermarkets to rid their shelves of meat from castrated male pigs.
- Eyes on Animals inspector Lesley with Dutch supermarket representatives (Super de Boer, Plus, Groothedde and CBL) inspecting the first slaughterhouse and pig farm to stop with castration.
November 2008 - Dutch supermarkets are finally taking notice of consumers’ concerns regarding animal welfare and are finalizing plans to rid their shelves of meat from castrated male pigs. Despite the 1-2% risk of intact males developing a smell, called “boar taint”, animal welfare organisations, the public and now even major Dutch supermarkets see the castration of male piglets as causing suffering and no longer being morally justified. Back in April 2008, the Dutch animal welfare organisation Varkens in Nood threatened several large supermarket chains in The Netherlands to take them to court for causing unnecessary animal suffering. Numerous supermarkets and meat distributors in The Netherlands responded by agreeing to phase out meat from castrated male pigs on their shelves. A significant Dutch meat service company (supplying major national grocery stores in Holland) was already in discussion with a German pig slaughterhouse, that furnishes most Dutch supermarket chains with pig meat, about this possibility. Together they started plans in developing an “electronic nose” that could detect boar taint at the slaughterhouse. Meat detected by this electronic nose as being tainted would be separated, cooked and worked into sausages. Via the heating, the taint disappears and is no longer detectable by consumers. Until then, Dutch supermarkets that have already agreed with Varkens in Nood and phased out meat from castrated male pigs from their shelves are purchasing pig meat from smaller slaughterhouses that have employees sniffing the boar meat to detect for boar taint. A meeting was held mid-November with the German slaughterhouse, various Dutch supermarkets and the Dutch welfare inspection-based organisation Eyes on Animals. It was announced that they all are committed to phase out castration, that a prototype of the electronic nose is already complete and the industrial version will be ready in the very near future. Once the electronic nose is built into the plant, the slaughterhouse in Germany has agreed to stop accepting castrated male pigs altogether. Varkens in Nood and Eyes on Animals see this as a major step in improving animal welfare and are continuing to meet with industry to mark its progress.
Below are a couple of international publications on this theme (click to open them):
Agrarisch Dagblad 14.11.2008 (Dutch)
Landesverband 2008 (German)
Press release sent out by Toennies 05.02.2009 (Dutch)
Read Eyes on Animals most recent report (November 2009) from the field about what progress has taken place within the industry to end castration, click here