In April 2023 Texas, USA – 18,000 dairy cattle were killed on their own ‘dairy-farm’ in an enormous explosion and ensuing fire. For this scale of devastation – a truly poor and unregulated management system must be in place.
And indeed when one reads more into it – the oldest animal welfare group in the USA states that there are no federal laws to prevent agricultural fires. They state that hundreds of thousands of farm animals are killed each year in fires. 6M+ if one includes chickens. Quite why chickens are not given the same billing is equally depressing.
These are truly astonishing numbers.
We can only imagine the horror and pain these poor beasts went through. The apparent lack of any form of safety regulation is a very poor indictment on industrialised meat production. There is a fundamental lack of value the process places on the life of the animal. It is all about the numbers it seems.
It made me reflect on our Manchester butchery business – the Butchers Quarter – and the businesses we come across on a daily basis. It made me reflect on the desperate deals our political ‘leaders’ are capable of doing in terms of meat imports from Australia, USA, Brazil, Argentina – where industrialisation is the norm. And finally it emphasised to me that what we do is right.
Animal husbandry in our supply chain is front and centre. Our meat comes from farms in Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. We know the farmers by name. The life of a beef animal is as important as its death – and all our beef comes via small family run abattoirs. Our venison is killed in the field. Low throughput equals low stress for the animal. A cleaner more direct supply chain is hard to imagine.
Perhaps we should all eat less red meat? We definitely need to stop eating industrially produced meat. All I would urge you to do is eat the best you can afford. Shop local – and ask your butcher where their meat comes from. If they can’t tell you – go elsewhere.
Let’s celebrate our passionate suppliers and contemporaries that care about sustainable production and animal welfare as much as we do. @castlebelties; @janesfarmshop; John Holt Lamb; @pitscandlyfarm; Burns Meat; @littlewoodsbutchers; @gingerpigltd, @hillandszork.
