VEETRANS Quality System- Dutch animal transporters and traders trying to improve animal welfare in a harmonized way
VEETRANS is a corporation of Dutch animal transporters and animal traders that want to improve animal welfare but keep everyone on the same level playing field so that competition is fair. The VEETRANS QUALITY SYSTEM sets down rules that all members must abide by in order to be a part of the system. These rules are largely based on the EU animal transport legislation but in many cases are slightly stricter to better protect animals from suffering. So far there are 105 members of the quality system and on January 26, 2010 the system was officially approved by the Dutch Minister of Agriculture.
Eyes on Animals highly encourages these types of industry efforts to reduce animal suffering, and congratulates the organizers of VEETRANS for taking such an initiative. Nevertheless, there are certain points in the VEETRANS that we do not support and are politely insisting that VEETRANS strengthen them. To read our recent letter to VEETRANS about these recommended changes, click here.
Some poultry slaughterhouses are switching over to using gas to stun the birds- a better alternative that assures stunning as opposed to using the electric water bath (where 50% are not stunned properly before slaughter).
- Hens suspended alive using the cruel electric-water bath method.
Plukon Royale BV is a poultry meat company with slaughterhouses in Belgium (Pingo Poultry), the Netherlands and Germany. In 2005 the company committed itself to geting rid of electrical stunning. Electrical stunning of poultry is an incorrect method for poultry slaughterhouses to be using because when the amper and voltage levels are set high enough to guarantee that the poultry are rendered unconscious, many blood vessels burst. It is well-known that poultry plants are therefore purposely setting the amper and voltage levels lower to avoid loss in meat quality, but as a result an unnacceptable percentage of birds (according to scientific reports it is 50%!) are still conscious when having their carotid artery cut or even heading into the scalding tank.
By 2007 Plukon Royale had switched all of their poultry slaughterhouses over to using gas stunning. A mixture of Co2 and O2 is used, at low concentrations in the beginning to avoid being too aversive to the birds, and then once they start losing consciousness the concentration is increased to render them all completely unconscious. A big advantage in terms of welfare is that the birds do not have to be hung upside down, as done with the electric bath system. Suspending them causes panic and bone fractures.
Eyes on Animals congratulates Plukon Royale for having made this switch. It cost them 800,000 euro in investment per plant, but after 3 years the money invested was returned because they have less meat loss.
Plukon Royale supplies, among other retailers, McDonalds. Yet again, McDonalds proves that it is taking steps to decrease farm animal suffering. McDonalds in the Netherlands and Belgium has also stopped with pig castration. Bravo!
The Netherlands: Dutch supermarkets to rid their shelves of meat from castrated male pigs.
- Eyes on Animals inspector Lesley with Dutch supermarket representatives (Super de Boer, Plus, Groothedde and CBL) inspecting the first slaughterhouse and pig farm to stop with castration.
November 2008 - Dutch supermarkets are finally taking notice of consumers’ concerns regarding animal welfare and are finalizing plans to rid their shelves of meat from castrated male pigs. Despite the 1-2% risk of intact males developing a smell, called “boar taint”, animal welfare organisations, the public and now even major Dutch supermarkets see the castration of male piglets as causing suffering and no longer morally justifiable. Numerous supermarkets and meat distributors in The Netherlands responded by agreeing to phase out meat from castrated male pigs on their shelves. A significant Dutch meat service company (supplying major national grocery stores in Holland) was already in discussion with a German pig slaughterhouse, that furnishes most Dutch supermarket chains with pig meat, about this possibility. Together they started plans in developing an “electronic nose” that could detect boar taint at the slaughterhouse. Meat detected by this electronic nose as being tainted would be separated, cooked and worked into sausages. Via the heating, the taint disappears and is no longer detectable by consumers. Until then, Dutch supermarkets that have already agreed to phase out meat from castrated male pigs from their shelves are purchasing pig meat from smaller slaughterhouses that have employees sniffing the boar meat to detect for boar taint. A meeting was held mid-November with the German slaughterhouse, various Dutch supermarkets and the Dutch welfare inspection-based organisation Eyes on Animals. It was announced that they all are committed to phase out castration, that a prototype of the electronic nose is already complete and the industrial version will be ready in the very near future. Once the electronic nose is built into the plant, the slaughterhouse in Germany has agreed to stop accepting castrated male pigs altogether. Eyes on Animals see this as a major step in improving animal welfare and are continuing to meet with industry to mark its progress.
***UPDATE 2009: the electronic nose is no longer seen as vital for slaughterhouses to switch over to accepting boars. The human- sniffer method has proven to be very reliable and has been used now by even large slaughterhouses without any consumer complaints of boar taint getting out into the shelves of their supermarkets!
Below are a couple of international publications on this theme (click to open them):
Agrarisch Dagblad 14.11.2008 (Dutch)
Landesverband 2008 (German)
Press release sent out by Toennies 05.02.2009 (Dutch)
Read Eyes on Animals most recent report (November 2009) from the field about what progress has taken place within the industry to end castration.
Read the letter initiated by Eyes on Animals taskforce members and sent off by the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals to 88 Canadian pig abattoirs and 21 Canadian supermarket chains in February 2010 in the hope of convincing Canada, also a major producer of pigs, to also stop pig castration. Read the newspaper article published in a Canadian newspaper "Manitoba Co-operator" on March 25 2010 in reaction to our letter. Eyes on Animals was not impressed with this article, as many facts stated in it were not true and the idea of phasing out pig castration in Canada was belittled. We therefore photocopied the article and sent copies to Dutch farmers, chauffeurs and pig slaughterhouses, encouraging them to write a letter to the newspaper editor to set some things straight. A number of Dutch pig industry people indeed wrote in, and two of their terrific letters were published in the Canadian agricultural newspaper! Read these letters to the editor.