THE Wilberforce slaughterhouse at the centre of animal cruelty claims revealed after a video surfaced containing horrendous footage of animals being beaten with a metal bar, has been closed for investigation by the NSW Food Authority whose director of compliance branded it a ‘’rogue operation’’.
The footage, initially shown on ABC’s Lateline program last week, showed a worker at Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors (HVMP) bashing one pig several times over the head with a metal bar. Another pig was hit 13 times because it had not been stunned properly.
Other scenes revealed repeated and appar-ently illegal use of electric prods to move animals around the slaughterhouse and, in one instance, a goat that tried to escape was caught and smashed against a wall.
The video was covertly recorded by workers at the abattoir over six days at the end of last month. It shows workers mistreating sheep, cattle, pigs and goats, including sheep being hung up and skinned while apparently still conscious.
Executive director of compliance at the NSW Food Authority, Peter Day, said the footage was “not representative of the industry as a whole”.
“This is a rogue operation that’s in no way compliant with what is expected of abattoirs out there in the community,” he said.
Meanwhile, Wilberforce’s M&A Butchery which fronts the land on which the abattoir sits and which leases the site to HVMP had to call police on Friday to remove several people from the butchery, including some members of the media who had been asked to leave.
Farmers across the Hawkesbury have been in touch with the Gazette to express their horror at the thought their animals sent to HVMP for slaughter may have been similarly mistreated.
Butchers across the Hawkesbury are also expecting ramifications, as customers demand to know where their meat comes from.
One butcher who spoke to this journalist on condition of anonymity said, “most of the butchers round here buy at least some of their meat from that abattoir, but none of them are going to admit it now”. The abattoir is the only commercial slaughterhouse in the Hawkesbury and not surprisingly many local farmers send their animals there to be prepared for sale by butchers.
One farmer who does not want to be named sent the Gazette a copy of a letter penned to state Hawkesbury MP Ray Williams.
The farmer said “I am a small-acre hobby farmer with two stud stock breeding cows and yes, had sent one beautifully quiet steer to the HVMP at Wilberforce”.
“My initial great distress turned to great anger that local people had done this and that the management had allowed these practices,” the letter said. “I wanted justice for the animals, I wanted retribution exacted in the harshest terms from those people, I wanted them to know that local animal owners and the public had trusted them to manage the slaughter in modern and humane ways. HVMP have now broken that trust and it will take a lot for it to be regained, for some it may never return.
“The negative publicity may also have detrimental effects on the Hawkesbury Harvest Trail, local butchers and restaurants offering locally produced meat.”
M&A Butchery employed a leading international public relations company to put out a media release over the weekend to clarify to their customers the butchery’s links to HVMP.
“M&A Butchery, a family company that has been supplying top quality meat to Sydney’s west for over 15 years, is a customer of Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors and also owns the King Road site leased by the processors for about seven years,” the statement said.
“We strongly believe in the humane slaughter of animals, so we were shocked and appaled at the actions depicted in the footage revealed by ABC’s Lateline program.
“We must stress our companies are completely separate, and we had absolutely no knowledge of any such happenings on the site leased by Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors.
“M&A Butchery only sources meat from accredited suppliers and processors. Following the shocking revelations by Lateline, M&A Butchery is urgently seeking further assurances from its processors and suppliers that no such abuses are occurring to its stock.”
On Monday, M&A Butchery co-owner, Angela Diasinos, told the Gazette things had quietened down. In a statement, HVMP said “on first becoming aware of the video footage on Wednesday the firm self-reported the apparent breaches of processing regulations to the NSW Food Authority which has now withdrawn the company’s operating licence and is undertaking an investigation.
“Casual staff involved in the incident have been stood down and permanent staff have been moved to other duties until the investigation has been finalised.”
Once the investigation by the RSPCA and the NSW Food Authority is complete, HVMP’s owners will have to present a solid case for reinstatement of their licence to operate.
NSW Primary Industries minister, Katrina Hodgkinson, said the footage should act as a wake-up call for all abattoir operators.
“I’ve seen this footage, and it may well be a one-off, but we’re certainly going to review the operations in all abattoirs as a result of this,” she said. “I want to make sure that all operations right across NSW are being conducted in a manner which follows those animal welfare guidelines.”
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