European Slaughter Plants

[Horse]

Grasfarmer do you know how they operate in europe. In talking to various emigrants they seem to tell me that an awful lot of the slaughtering is done in the local abitior and from farmers with a small number of animals. In many cases only 1 or 2 animals from a farm. I would think there must be large operations some where .

[grassfarmer]

Speaking for the UK only we have moved from the traditional smaller plants which every town had to a greatly reduced number - plus some bigger operators. The nearest figures I could find were up to 1996 - prior to our big BSE crisis and F M so things will have shrunk again since the. 1890 plants in 1971 had shrunk to 488 in 1996. 5.4 million cattle killed in 1975 down to 2.3 million in 1996. By 1996 of the 390 plants killing cattle 15 were killing 40% of the total kill. (the 15 plants mentioned would be killing less than 4000 a day combined for 250 days a year at that rate)Remember that we are only really killing for domestic demand plus we import an awful lot of beef nowadays.
It will have changed much since 1996 - tighter rules, less cattle and less plants. It is said that with the new European rules no new plants will be built in the UK - the costs would be prohibitive. I guess production just moves to places where the rules are less strict and the peasants are easier to exploit. Hope that helps.

[grassfarmer]

Thanks for that info grassfarmer. It is always interesting to see what is happening in the industry elsewhere.

[Horse]

Thanks grassfarmer it helps a little to understand how things operate elsewhere.