Rare breeders and smallholders warn of the huge impact small abattoirs shutting is having on the industry

According to The Sustainable Food Trust, which launched a Campaign For Small Abattoirs in 2018, there are now only around 62 small red meat abattoirs left in the UK, with a third having closed in the past decade.

The latest to shut in North Yorkshire is CR Horner at Kilburn, though the butchery side of the business remains.

It is understood that a burdensome amount of paperwork and "red tape" pushed Horners into joining the legions of smaller abattoirs shutting its doors.

The Sustainable Food Trust says local abattoirs are of "critical importance" in the supply chain of high welfare meat and their loss threatens the very future of local meat production.

The closures are particularly impacting rare and native breed farmers and the lobbying group is calling on the government to take action to prevent the further decline of the small abattoir sector by reducing paperwork, improving cross-government coordination and addressing the cost of waste collection, among other measures.

Mandy Garbutt, who farms at Ingleby Arncliffe, near Northallerton, is secretary of the Gloucestershire Old Spots Pig Breeders Club, and says the impact of local slaughterhouses shutting is particularly felt by smallholders like herself.

Pig Breeder Mandy Garbutt is a small scale farmer she is worried about the damaging impact that small abattoirs closing in the patch is having on small breeders like herself Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT

She explains that larger abattoirs are ill-equipped to deal with one or two kills and says farmers who pride themselves on rearing and slaughtering their animals locally are now being forced to travel much further to use abattoir services.

This not only impacts animal welfare due to longer journey times – and the occasional need for animals to stay overnight at large abattoirs – but it also increases costs to the farmer and can leave them in a situation whereby keeping a small herd for meat is no longer financially viable.

Ms Garbutt says: "It (Horners closing) is a big blow to the smallholding community and for a few farmers because not all of them send hundreds of cattle and sheep at a time.

"The trouble with the big commercial abattoirs is that it is a 'one size fits all' model, whether you have 100 pigs or one, but unfortunately the world isn't like that and farming certainly isn't like that."

Ms Garbutt explains that upon Horners closing, two of her pigs were taken to a large abattoir in Leeds and were sandwiched between two truckloads of 200 pigs all awaiting slaughter, making the experience traumatic for her animals and for her husband who had driven them there.

She says: "There was one wagon of screaming pigs in front and one behind and it was awful – my husband is a rough, tough builder, he isn't a soppy type, but he said we would have to stop (rearing for meat) if he ever had to go back there again."

The couple now use an abattoir at Witton le Wear, near Bishop Auckland, a near 80-mile round journey compared to the ten minutes it took them to travel to Horners.

Ms Garbutt has raised the issue with government officials including her local MP Kevin Hollinrake and says more must be done to support small abattoirs.

This call is echoed by Lyn Arrowsmith, a rare breed farmer at Raskelf near Easingwold and chair of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust York branch.

She says the closure of small-scale slaughter operations could be "devastating" for the future of Britain's rare breeds as their meat is a niche market, meaning farmers generally keep only a small number of animals and sell meat in relatively low volumes.

She says: "It is going to have an enormous effect on rare breeds.

"When we are trying to persuade people to keep a small herd they have to know where the nearest abattoir is and it might now be two or three hours away and they can't make enough money to make it viable.

"The costs just spiral and you can't make that back."

Pig Breeder Mandy Garbutt is a small scale farmer she is worried about the damaging impact that small abattoirs closing in the patch is having on small breeders like herself Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT

Ms Arrowsmith says she understood that extra government regulations and equipment upgrades are intended to improve conditions at slaughterhouses – big and small – but says it has left many small operations unable to cope with the additional costs and admin.

She adds: "None of us want the animals to be treated badly and that is why we go to our local abattoir. But reality has got to come into it.

"It is never going to be a nice process, but you want to make it as good as possible for the animal and when they (smaller abattoirs) get so scared or overwhelmed that they close, it is making the situation worse in terms of animal welfare.

"They (the government) have been putting them out of business with paperwork, that is how I see and hear it.

"Nobody wants abattoirs to go back to closed doors places where nobody can see what is happening, however I think the pressure has really got too much for some.

"And once they are shut, there is no going back."

Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton, acknowledges that the closures are "an unintended consequence" of the government trying to improve abattoir standards across the board.

He says he has consistently raised the matter with DEFRA and farming ministers including George Eustace and Victoria Prentis – the latter of whom recently joined him on a visit to farmers in his constituency to hear their concerns directly.

Mr Hollinrake says: "A lot of problems are being caused by trying to improve animal welfare by making regulations tighter, with more checks and CCTV and it does put an extra administrative burden on places like Horners that are smaller and don't have the economies of scale to deal with it.

"I am very concerned that these smaller abattoirs remain viable when we put these extra regulations on them.

"We have got to make sure that the regulations are proportionate; we have got to look at these issues very carefully."

When asked what the government could do to better support small abattoirs, he says: "There is no magic wand I'm afraid, other than to keep making the point that when we change regulations for the right reasons, we do look at the unintended consequences and think 'that might be the death knell for the small abattoir'."

A Defra spokesman told the D&S Times: “We recognise the role small abattoirs play in supporting the rural economy, the environmental benefits of reduced 'food miles' and that shorter journey times to slaughter are a positive driver for increasing animal welfare standards.

"The government encourages the highest possible standards of animal welfare at the time of slaughter.

“We are working with both the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) to streamline administrative burdens, and our Small Abattoir Working Group is engaging with industry to ensure we take a strategic view of the issues the sector is facing.”