Gas chamber video leads to charges against pig abattoir

PrimeSafe has charged the Australian Food Group over its handling of pigs, following a Farm Transparency Project investigation.

Farm Transparency Project animal activists collected video of pigs being gassed at Victorian abattoirs.

PrimeSafe has launched legal action against the Australian Food Group over its handling of pigs at its abattoir, following The Farm Transparency Project animal activists’ releasing videos of pigs being gassed at the company’s Laverton North abattoir.

AFG had already advised PrimeSafe in May it intended to cancel its licence to operate as an abattoir, but PrimeSafe has still gone ahead with legal action.

PrimeSafe chief executive Michael Coffey said the authority had concluded a comprehensive investigation into the processor’s handling of pigs, which led it to charge AFG with two counts of breaching the Meat Industry Act 1993.

PrimeSafe also investigated footage obtained from CA Sinclair’s Benalla abattoir, which has led the company to commit to changing its work practices and installing CCTV to monitor pig handling.

“PrimeSafe acknowledges the constructive way the business involved has engaged throughout the investigation,” Mr Coffey said.

PrimeSafe’s investigation followed The Farm Transparency Project’s animal activists collecting footage from hidden cameras inside both abattoirs that showed pigs thrashing about and gasping for air as they were stunned in CO2 gas chambers.

A 2021 study by University of Melbourne Animal Welfare Science Centre senior researcher Ellen Jongman’s into gas stunning of 1769 pigs across five abattoirs showed “pigs lost posture 22.5 (seconds) after commencement of descent of the gondola into the CO2 chamber”.

Dr Jongman said minimising pre-slaughter stress was crucial to the process, which was best achieved by keeping pigs in their home groups, from farm to stunning.

She first saw pigs being gas-stunned in Denmark 25 years ago, where pigs were kept in the same mob they lived with on the farm, from trucking to the processing plant’s holding pen and into the gas chamber.