Leading UK meat supplier Cranswick has committed to a fully independent veterinary review of its existing animal welfare policies, following the shocking revelations last week of abuse at one of its farms. 

It also announced a comprehensive review of its livestock operations across the UK. 

However, you had to really dig deep into the group’s overwhelmingly positive annual results (reporting record revenues and profits) released to the London Stock Exchange this morning to find the paragraph in CEO Adam Couch’s review of the year where he referenced the new policy. And Cranswick didn’t specifically refer to the sordid behaviour filmed at Northmoor Farm in Lincolnshire either. 

For the record, it stressed last week that the recording was captured between January and March 2024, just a few months after it purchased Elsham Linc, which owned the farm. All staff employed at the farm were immediately suspended and a full disciplinary process was instigated.

A hard truth for meat eaters

On the one hand, it’s understandable that this morning’s update focused on the impressive financial details of its volume-driven growth, big capex investments, acquisitions and advances in its poultry operations. But with the animal welfare story making headlines just last week it was, perhaps, short-sighted not to make the issue more central. 

As if to underline this argument, further comms were sent to journalists much later in the morning highlighting the new review for all those who may have missed it earlier in the day. 

This is clearly a highly charged and emotive subject, and rightly so. Some will argue it was a contained series of inexcusable incidents committed by an isolated handful of workers, while others will say this type of mistreatment of animals is hard-baked into the system and far more widespread than reports reveal. Both are likely right – to varying degrees. 

Read more: Cranswick ‘disappointed’ at shocking animal welfare abuse footage

Facing the upsetting photos and video footage of pigs and piglets being abused is a hard truth for meat eaters – and one we usually don’t give a second thought to when picking up sausages and bacon. 

The footage would have been equally upsetting for Couch and his management team. It doesn’t reflect the standards of the company as a whole – something it was at pains to stress last week. And its good work on welfare shouldn’t be ignored.

Analysts at Shore Capital, the company’s house broker, today highlighted they have seen firsthand how Cranswick has “progressed pig and poultry farming in the UK, including its NestBorn chick system”. 

“Whilst, as was recently evident in the UK press, behavioural aberrations can occasionally occur, [this is] something that we know Cranswick’s management takes to heart, acts on promptly and decisively to sustain customer and shopper trust,” Shore said in an analyst note, welcoming the new review. 

Supply and demand

In addition to the review of the livestock operations, Cranswick has also introduced new surveillance technology at all 45 of its indoor pig units, including behaviour analytics, intruder detection and ANPR. Knowing Big Brother is watching will, hopefully, be enough to make workers think twice before acting in a way they wouldn’t want others to see. 

The fact remains that the majority of the UK public will continue to eat meat, and we rely on businesses such as Cranswick to supply that demand. 

Read more: Animal welfare is in crisis: now is the time to be proactive

These animals are reared to be killed (not a pleasant fact but a reality meat eaters should probably spend more time thinking about), but processing them in calm and stress-free way should be the number one priority. 

Ethical matters aside, it isn’t in the commercial interests of Cranswick to tolerate welfare breaches, whether endemic or as aberrations to normal practice. A £200m drop in market valuation following the appalling footage coming to light is testament to that. And while most shoppers prefer to remain blissfully unaware of the realities of the killing floor, soothed by the marketing images of smiling animals basking in sunlit meadows, they also won’t tolerate flagrant abuse when it makes the front pages. 

And if Cranswick must spend a little more of its record profits to completely stamp out any chances of further unspeakable treatment of its livestock, then that is money well spent, for the good of consumers, supermarkets, shareholders – and of course the animals themselves.

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