Animal Aid

Cheale Meats has been found guilty on eight charges of breaching hygiene regulations after the company delivered over-temperature meat to wholesalers at Smithfield Market and in Leeds. The company was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay £26,000 in prosecution costs.

Animal Aid knew that hygiene practices at the Essex slaughterhouse were lax when last year it filmed workers smoking and coughing up phlegm around the pigs, urinating around their feet and spitting into their faces. While clearly constituting poor hygiene, none of these acts directly breaches current regulations, and so no prosecution could be brought.

Animal Aid’s footage did, however, secure the conviction of two Cheale Meats workers who were jailed in April 2012 for abusing animals.