Hormel: USDA-Approved High Speed Slaughter Hell

[JohnyCanuck]

A Compassion Over Killing investigator worked inside Quality Pork Processors, a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse in Minnesota that exclusively supplies to Hormel, the makers of SPAM. This shocking footage offers a disturbing, close-up view of the suffering endured by pigs as they are pushed, prodded and dragged to their death.

It's a video from inside a slaughter house, so you should know it isn't going to be pleasant to watch.

In 2015, a COK investigator worked inside Quality Pork Processors (QPP), a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse in Minnesota that exclusively supplies to Hormel, the makers of SPAM. This shocking footage offers a disturbing, close-up view of the suffering endured by pigs as they are pushed, prodded and dragged to their death.

This facility is one of five in the U.S. operating under a USDA pilot program, known as “HIMP”, that allows for high-speed slaughter and reduced government oversight. That means this facility operates at faster line speeds than almost any other facility in the U.S.: approximately 1,300 pigs are killed each hour, their meat to be sold as SPAM or other Hormel pork products.

The excessive slaughter line speed forces workers to take inhumane shortcuts that lead to extreme suffering for millions of pigs. It also jeopardizes food safety for consumers.

Our video inside this Hormel supplier documents:

animals being beaten, shocked, dragged, and improperly stunned—all out of view of the few government inspectors
sick and injured pigs unable to walk, known as “downers,” enduring particularly egregious abuses, since they cannot walk to the kill floor
pigs covered in feces or pus-filled abscesses being slaughtered and processed for human consumption with a USDA inspection seal of approval
numerous instances of improper stunning and slaughter, potentially leading to some animals entering the scalding tank while still alive
a supervisor sleeping on the job when he should have been overseeing the stunning process to ensure workers were following protocol

http://cok.net/inv/hormel/

[LiberalElite]

1. Here is a DU post

to a DU post in Vegetarian, Vegan and Animal Rights - it contains a link to a petition to stop this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11313468

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Thanks for the link. n/t

[Travis_0004]

3. Video makes me glad that I usually hunt wild boar myself.

[Enthusiast]

10. Your method is more humane.

When I was a hunter my first concern was delivering the most effective possible kill shot. I was obsessed with accuracy. I wanted to anchor the deer to the spot.

Additionally wild boars are a non-native, invasive species anyway. And that's one more pig raised by nature instead of a factory farm, concentrated pollution source.

[Art_from_Ark]

13. You know, I had always thought that razorback hogs were native to Arkansas

but after reading what you wrote I checked up on it and, sure enough, they are non-native.

[Enthusiast]

14. I can understand why you could think they are native.

I believe our only native swine-like species is the Peccary or Javelina. But wild boars are now found in every state. I'm not so sure about Alaska.

[jalan48]

4. Why I don't eat meat.

[cui bono]

5. I have heard the screams of pigs thrown into the scalding tank while alive.

It's truly harrowing.

I can't watch the video, I can't take seeing it. But thanks for posting this information. I wish people would at least cut back on their meat consumption so that this sort of factory farming wasn't "necessary". That's not the right word, but I can't think of the right word now.

I wish I could say I was vegan or even vegetarian, but I do still eat poultry sometimes and also bacon.

[LiberalElite]

8. There is a brand of

vegetarian bacon by Morningstar Farms. It's very much like bacon. A friend of mine who was a pretty steadfast meat eater tried it and never went back to the real thing. It's in the frozen food section.

[cui bono]

11. I'll try it. I do eat their veggie sausage patties which I like very much.

[snort]

6. This is why I'm a vegetarian.

[LiberalElite]

7. me too nt

[mucifer]

9. I can't watch that. I'm already vegan.

I REALLY appreciate that you posted it.

I have a friend who works for the usda in DC and tells me she is ashamed of the stuff they do.

[restorefreedom]

12. pigs are known to be smarter and as sensitive as dogs

and yet that would never be accepted treatment of dogs (rightly so) in this country. how people can live in such willful ignorance of obscene suffering is shocking to me.

thank gods that animal ag is so bad for the planet. that will be the only thing that will force it to stop..people thinking about their own survival.

poor pigs...