Moy Park’s Lincolnshire slaughterhouse has been fined a total of £118,000 after being charged with four counts of failing to comply with the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015.
Moy Park pleaded guilty to the offences that took place in 2016 and comprised three charges related to unnecessary suffering of animals and failure to comply with standard operating procedures.
More specifically, Moy Park was found guilty of failing to comply with Regulation of the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations, which required that animals should be spared avoidable pain, distress or suffering during their killing and related operations, on 7th June, 29th November and 14th December 2016.
According to the case’s details, 518 birds from a load of 6,336 were found to be dead on arrival at the Anwick slaughterhouse on 7th June; two modules containing live birds tipped over in the slaughter line two de-stacker, resulting in some being crushed and others being trapped by their necks and wings between the crates and mode frame on 29th November; and two modules containing 315 live birds went through the module washer, with the birds being sprayed with pressurised water jets and disinfectant on 14th December.
In addition, on 7th June, Moy Park failed to immediately advise the duty Official Veterinarian when the aforementioned birds were delivered to the premises, while also failing to present 10 of the dead birds to them to enable the undertaking of a post-mortem inspection.
Moy Park was fined £33,500 on each of three charges related to unnecessary suffering, £16,750 for failure to comply with standard operating procedures, court costs of £1,100 and victim surcharge of £170.
A Moy Park spokesperson said: “We consider it our moral duty to care responsibly for our birds and these incidents, which were a result of a mechanical malfunction and a breakdown in procedures, are not acceptable to us.
“Each incident was thoroughly investigated and appropriate measures have been taken and are constantly monitored, including mechanical hardware and software improvements.
“As an additional response we have also introduced new procedures and training for employees. The automated systems we have invested in are widely recognised as delivering significantly higher animal welfare benefits than standard manual systems.
“We sincerely believe that the new measures we have in place today will help us to achieve our aim of providing the optimum welfare conditions for our birds at every stage in their life and development.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
