 We've welcomed people from the media, and we've had a lady come down from Radio 4, and we've also had Plymouth Live and Plymouth Howl and things come in and watch the process, and the general consensus has been, is that it? That is it. Oh, thank God, you know, but every single one of those people who came, including the people from Warsaw Animal Action, were terrified about what they were potentially going to see, or what they would witness, and then they come out and they say, I didn't think it was going to be anything like that. These cameras here, like if this is so normal and natural, and you know, humane, and look at them shutting these big gates, it's absolutely insane, like slaughterhouses are worried that this gets out to the public. Why? You know? Why? So normal and, you know, so ethical, it's so ethical here. You know? What's the problem? Wow. Are we allowed to film it with the camera? Are we allowed to film it through the... OK. OK. OK. No problems. So this is all real time. This was at 28 minutes past 12. So this will be the steer that you showed us, yeah? Yeah. And this is the animal that I can show you, this animal being sorted on the film. OK. So you can see exactly how it will work. Here he is coming into the stun box. So here there's a check gate here, and there's also one behind as well. Just using a stick. There's two loads to get your arm in. But as you can see, there's no... No heating on the animal. A lot of places, no. Well I suppose they're really just trying to keep up the production line, aren't they, when they do that, aren't they? Yeah. So you can see the check gates closed there behind. OK, yep. And that's me. Rocking the bobble hat. So we actually used black shot on this bollock because he was sort of borderline. I wasn't sure if he was going to be 600 kilos or bigger. Yeah. So we always are on the side of caution. To make sure it's a really clean shot. Yeah. To make sure it's an effective shot. It pierces through the skull. OK, sweetie. OK, so these cows here are all waiting to be slaughtered. So they'll go into the kill line where we just were, get led down that path and shot in the head from the top. Processed into steak for the individual who raised them. So it's interesting to raise someone, take care of them, take them here to be chopped up into pieces and then eat their body. For me, that's just like really outside of what I would consider moral. Bollock stepped back so it's sort of a bit tricky for Gage to reach in. I just thought I personally couldn't do that, but I would just want to keep them as friends. So this is where, for example, I'll shoot from above. OK. So because this animal is quiet, if you can see it wasn't stressed, it wasn't thrashing around at all. So he's essentially unconscious now? Yes, he's unconscious. So we double check, we check for any reflex of the eye or any rhythmic breathing before we open the gate in case there needs to be a re-stun. OK. So you can see there's no rhythmic breathing, there's no blinking of the eye, there's no movement. More from than not, their tongue will hang out. The BBC were doing a series of programmes called The Food Chain. OK. And they came from London and they said they approached, I don't know how many avatars I think it was nine. Between Cornwall and London and Naples, they either didn't get a response or they got a note. And we said, well, why? Why do they got to hide? You're a legitimate organisation making an informative programme. Why would you not want to cooperate or let people see what you do? I guess mainly the problem they would see, like big places like that, is that it might affect their business. And a lot of big plants have supermarket contracts and so they don't want people in. Because if they say, oh yeah, like I said, sometimes things go wrong. If something went wrong in front of them and then that was recorded and they said, oh my god, you never guess what. This abattoir supply such and such a supermarket. And this happened in front of us and it's, oh my god, horrific. Then, yeah. So we shackled the front leg. So we're hoisting it now over the blood pit. And I think historically a lot of things can be misconstrued. You know, yes, I've seen some footage of other abattoirs in the slaughter and stunning process. It may come sick. This is our OV who's present every single slaughter and that there is a vertical chestic. You go vertically just to get as many arteries as you can? Yeah, what it does is by using vertical chestic you're cutting the arteries that come in from the heart. So they bleed out an awful lot quicker. Heymans wasn't it in Ottery St Mary and I thought they were heavy handed with a cattle. It wasn't illegal, but from how we operate I thought it's a bit heavy handed, a bit unnecessary. And that's all just reflexes the animal kicking in. So you're just waiting for the blood to drop out the animal? And how do you know when it will stop? So the heart's beating the blood out? At the moment, yes. But that was from them was construed as oh my god, you know, shock, shock horror. I was like, yeah, you know, a bit unnecessary. But yeah, at the same time it wasn't illegal. And you know, we've seen some things happen. I've seen farmers treat their animals worse. Some farmers, some farmers are brilliant as you can tell by the livestock when they come in. Well, I guess because like when an animal becomes property, their property, they can treat their property essentially how they want. But I don't want to clean my car. Well, if you're looking at it, like, well, they're just, they're just stock to me. Yeah, but you've still got trading standards. As you can see on here, his tongue was out, there was no rhythmic breathing, no movement from the eye. So that was an effectively stunned animal. He had a pig come in once, didn't we? Yeah. And he brought in, I think it was like six or seven pigs and you open the tailboard of the trailer and they're all scrabbling over each other and you're thinking, something's not right here. And then we slaughtered them and one pig was like, he was beaten back and blue like with, it must have been like an alfafene pipe or something like that. Oh my God. So phoned him up and I said, when you come in, we need to have a chat. Yeah. So he came in and I said, look, we had to throw away that entire carcass. I said, I've taken pictures, I've sent them to trading standards. And well, we both said to him, didn't we? If you ever bring anything like that here again, we'll have nothing to do with you. I was like, there's no need for it. He said, oh, it wouldn't load. I was like, there's ways and means about it. Sometimes if you get pigs that are really stubborn, a lot of people don't know that if you put like a bucket, get a big bucket and you put a bucket over his head, they walk backwards. So you can literally just like, yeah. So the pig didn't want to get on the truck and he bashed the pig with a pipe and then you down. We slaughtered it. So the breezing came out after the pig was closer. You couldn't see the marks on the skin until the hair was removed. Yeah, okay now. And obviously for the breezing to come through, wasn't it? Because it only loaded that morning. And you've seen the damage to the animal's body after you removed the skin and thought there was something up there? Oh gosh, yeah. It was horrific. So she said, she was at a halal plant. And she said, so that there was nerves. And she said she witnessed once an animal taking sort of 14 minutes to die. Yeah, I've got a video on my channel where an animal took about 10 to 15 minutes to die. So that is the entire slaughter process. Where were the rest of the processing happening in this room here? Yeah. So you get contrast like that. But then you get some farmers who are lovely and dope on their animals. You got other people who are happy-handed. Opson farmers have tear up driving their animals to the slaughterhouse. We've had people here in tears in the laryg. We've said, if you feel this strongly, you don't have to do this. You don't have to do it. You've got the option. You can keep these animals around. Yeah, but they've all said it's always been that this animal is going to go in the freeze. The destiny of the animal. That is it. And if they took it home, the Mrs would kill them. But yeah. And we've had guys in tears. Yeah, and we've said you can come in and watch it. Yeah, we've said yeah. Would it reassure you if you want to come and see the stunt? And some guys have gone, would you mind, no? Grab it with the tongs and it's gone like millisecond. They said, that's it. Oh, thank God. The visions of, I don't know what, of us bludging it to the club animals. So, yeah. Very interesting that people have these emotional reactions to letting their animals down. It's not a problem with that. To guard the sun and carefree is good. Yeah. You know what you're saying? It's my property. You can't really have that mentality. A lot of people do though, don't they? I don't know. I don't know any people, really, not personally, that are co-warraff. Okay. So it's hoisted onto a cradle. Okay. So we've removed the head. So that's the first thing you do is remove the head? Yeah. So the head is removed and skinned. That way the vet can check to see the shot if it was in the right place. So you can see, even now, the animal has been dead for quite a few minutes. There are still reflexes. You can see the tail still moving. Obviously, the head is off. There's nothing communicating with the body at all. It is literally just nerves. I guess some people just get desensitised and look at the guy that beat up the pig. I don't think it's desensitised. I think it's frustration. Like we said earlier on, they've got their own characters and pigs. Pigs are by far the hardest, the most difficult livestock to handle. They're very anxious animals. They're very anxious. It only takes one little thing. And as soon as pigs realise something's up, that's it. They're not doing it. But that's why we offer a collection service. Because having been pig owners, avatar owners and handlers, we know the animals, their behaviours and generally how things will go and a good setup and what isn't a good setup. So we offer a collection service for small holders. So what we'll do is we'll load up the animals and like I said, we went and picked up a couple of pigs for an elderly couple. They weren't that old, were they? But he just had a knee replacement or something and she was going to have a hip done. So we rocked up and got one pig in and then the second pig was like, oh, not quite sure. I see you helped process the animal as well. Yeah, I'm fully licensed. So it's OK to put some corn on the tail bore, walk away, leave them and just wait. 15 minutes later, just walk to the gate. And also, in my limited experience with pigs, if you let them find their own way, it's quicker than trying to force them. You try to force them and then they think you're up to something. You just want them not to know what's about to happen if they have any idea that something's up. If we've got pigs that come in that are stressed, if they're not used to seeing people or if they've had a nasty transport here, a nasty journey and they urinate in the stun pen, then what they do is the stress. They release a hormone in their pee. So what we do, if you've had any pigs that have come in and they're stressed or anxious, then what we do is we wash out. Wash their hormone because the other pigs can smell it and they know something's up in it. So they'll go to walk in and then all of a sudden they're just like, oh, hang on. Something's going on in here. The people who are responsible for the animal welfare aren't on the floor doing the job. Whereas for myself and John, we're the managers, we own the avatar. We're on the floor doing it. So we invested all this money for this system for any people like themselves to go and watch it. It's full transparency. And it's interesting some slaughterhouses act like they've got something to hide. And slaughterhouses are worried that this gets out to the public. Why? If it's just food, if it's just, you're not doing nothing wrong, why hide? The thing is, if you ask anyone, farmer, smallholder, vet, anyone, when you're working with livestock, sometimes things go wrong, but it's not what happens, it's how you deal with it and it makes you a good slaughterman or a good vet. You have to do what is best for the animal. Other slaughterhouses wouldn't do that, would they? Probably not, because they're all in a rush rush. Well, because there's such a big demand and they're trying to meet that demand and things have to happen. I don't know if Kelly explained a lot of the big plans that the staff have paid on piecework. So the more you do, the more you get paid. So everyone's in a hurry up. A quota to meet sort of things. So if a pig is like, I'm not quite sure. Rather than backing off and taking the pressure off and the pigs in, okay, nothing's happening, I'll walk on. They're going to make it happen, they're going to make it happen. Because they're under pressure themselves in there. If you're holding up the production line. They're holding up their money in their bottom line and then all the other guys are going, come on, hurry up, we've got to get on. They don't have time to take the animals into account in there, you know. No, they're not, no. But then all of that comes back to the consumer. The consumer doesn't want to pay. And the skin, what happens with the skins? The hides, we send those off. We get £14 a hide. When we first bought the face in 2013, we were getting £35 a hide. So, for small arbitrails, that's a massive, massive difference. A massive blow and profit. And what was there any reason for that? Basically, it's the Chinese. The Chinese were paying over the odds for hides and skins for quite a long time. And ended up with a lot of other tanneries going out of business because they couldn't afford to pay what the Chinese were paying. But also, for example, the vegan movement, a lot of these hides and skins now have very little value, if any. Because the demand for leather is slowing down? Yeah. If our overheads go up, the price has to go up. Because if we can only sort of eight pigs an hour rather than a big plant that can, their costs are very similar but they can process 20 pigs an hour, then we have to charge more. And so, for the consumer to turn around and say, do you know what? That's too expensive. It's like you have to ask, what am I buying? So if you're buying pork or beef or lamb from a recutable source and they know what breed it was, where it was reared, how it was slaughtered, how it was butchered. And it's not just a lamb chop. There's a story behind it. That is what the consumer needs to be asking. And that costs a little bit more. But it's one of those things, isn't it? Most consumers don't want to really know that far into it. No, of course not. We continue skinning. We're having a conflag. I seem to do more talking than I do actually working. No. So we're taking the skin off. And this is the gutting process. Dad's clearly only done half a job. Oh, we're now taking the cheeks off. Gage told me it was dad that put them more on one bag. Also, I just wanted to ask you this question just come up. Do you slaughter and kill and eat the animals in your own plan? Yes. I now, the only poultry I eat is organic chicken. You don't slaughter a poultry from here. Birds terrify me. Birds terrify. But you still eat pork, beef and lamb. Only the slaughtered here. I won't buy meat from anywhere else. You slaughtered the animals yourself, don't you? Yes. Interesting. Generally, lambs, we buy Scotch Brat faces, don't we, off Donna? And they come from Mary Tavey. So they're born on the farm. They're grazed up on the moor. So there's lots of heather, lots of growth, lots of moss. And we will generally slaughter. We'll buy them off when they're sort of toothed. So they're sort of about 12, between 12 months and two year old. And that way you've got a much better flavour. They've had a longer life. And all of that experience does add to the flavour by giving them slightly longer. We know her as a person. She's a really lovely lady. She's a very good farmer. So we're very particular now. Oh yeah, it would be interesting. It's very interesting to meet someone who sources, slaughters and eats the animals that they... That's sort of the definition of a master butcher back in the day. So you burn all the heads and stuff like that. And do you use any of the... Do the customer want any of the insides? Yeah, the offal is always used. So hearts, lungs, liver, the cheeks, the tail. How old is that steer? I can tell you. Like on average, what would you say? 18 months or 12 months? No, I would have said he'd be pushing 20, 24 months. Okay, two years, yeah. He was born the 18th of February 2017. Okay. Yeah, that's his holding number. That's his ear tag number. His breed. It's similar to like a human being's birth certificate in a way. It is, yeah. So this is the date that he was moved off of his original holding, which is the 28th of January 2019. So he came in yesterday. And this is the day that he was killed. It's a birth and death certificate? Yes, but this here, it will, you know, he could be moved from three or four or five farms through his life. And all of that will be registered on his passport. Wow. So this is his passport, a castle passport. I am, my mind is like blown right now. So you know, there should be full traceability. Hello darling. Boy or girl? That's a girl. Hello darling. I can check the passport on her age, but I've got a feeling she's one that she couldn't get in the car. She's quite shy. Yeah. And we, you know, a small plant like us here offer that, whereas a big plant, once they've been sorted, and they're then butchered, you can lose that traceability. That salon steak was from that animal and that salon steak was from that animal. It can get when you're processing, yeah, when you're processing massive amounts. So like if you go to the supermarket and buy some mince to meet, that could be mince to meet from like all these different animals. Yeah, yeah, it could be. So a burger could contain more animals than... It could contain two or three, you know, genetically. It could contain, you know, meat from two or three different animals. Wow. I think that's, we've got a lot of... everything fully transparent here. I'm really, really surprised. And that there has really blown my mind. I didn't know they had individual passports, death and birth certificate. Yeah. Okay. Well, I appreciate your transparency in the tour. And you know, you could have easily said no, but this is really surprising that you let us in here. No, this is what we're all about, isn't it? I was going to say, like although we have like different views on, you know, killing the animals. And, you know, I don't believe animals are here for us to use as products and treated as property. I believe they have their own individual value and we should be guardians of them. I can see that this is, like I can see when you're talking about this, it's an emotional topic for you, and you're very connected to this. And you're trying to minimise the harm as much as possible, but doing something that you feel you don't see there's any other option, but to try to make this, you know, the killing of the animals is, you know, ethical as possible. Yeah. And you, in contrast to what other slaughterhouses are doing, are trying to make this, you know, as clean and quick and stress free. Yeah. You would still say that you believe this is 100% a needed thing to happen? Yes. Yeah. And I guess that's where you and I would break off, because I would say that, you know, it's not necessary, and we don't need to do this to animals, and we have, you know, there's an alternative that we could exercise, but I guess that's probably where we break off, because you feel like there's no other option, but to do it, and if we're going to do it, do it in the best way possible. Yeah. And I feel like there's a, there's torture in kill, treat them nicely in kill, or not kill at all, and I lean towards that option for myself, so I guess, but I just want to say that. Yeah. I understand, and I completely appreciate, you know, your point of view, and, you know, I completely respect it, and it does just come down to the fact that, you know, and I said to Chris when Devon Animal, say, came down last, that, you know, not everyone is going to turn vegan overnight, so there is, you know, whether you guys like it or not, there is a current need and demand for it. So, you know, if in 10, 15, 20 years time, the entire world does become vegan, and we don't see animals out in the field, or whatever, and they're going to be made into houses, you know, then obviously that's something that would need to be looked at later on down the line, but until that point, and people do eat meat, and people do want to eat meat, it's important to eat meat that is produced, slaughtered, and processed in the most traditional, ethical, and, you know, the best way, what I consider the best way possible, which is by respecting them, having empathy, and treating the animal as an individual, rather than a unit that has to be processed, however many units per hour. You know, they've got their own personalities, they are individual, and they need to be treated as such, whereas here they can and are, whereas a lot of big places, they don't have the time to do so. Well, I suppose that's because there's such a demand. Yes. So, how could you possibly meet demand of billions of people? You need billions more animals, and the process has to be... But for me, like, respecting someone, treating someone as an individual, also includes respecting their right to live, and that's where we branch off. But thank you so much for this civil discussion and agreeing to being on camera, and thank you. Can we spend some time with the animals? Yeah, yeah. John's just bedding them up, so he's just going to have a little shuffle round. So, and then, yeah, you're more than welcome. Oh, my God, look at... Are we filming once again? Look at this adorable, adorable angel. But... Is this a girl or boy? I believe it's a girl. You're a girl. Oh, my God. You're beautiful. Look at that face. I want to do one more last question before we finish this. Would you ever do a vegan challenge for 22 days? No. Why? Why not? No way. Like, just as a personal challenge? What have you got to lose? No, I couldn't. No, no way. Cos what would hold you back you missed the taste of meat too much? No, in that this job is incredibly physical. And, you know, you have to have a certain amount of protein. Strength? And I know it's a bit... You know, there's like... There's like bodybuilders that are vegan, you know that, right? Sorry? There's like bodybuilders that are vegan. Oh, yeah, but, you know, I just... I personally couldn't do it. You couldn't? No. I thought that would be a nice addition to the end of the video. Go, hey, would you do a vegan challenge? And she go, okay, I'll give it a go. We all go, yeah! He's adorable. How old? One year? Oh, he's still a baby. Oh, darling. And they... So the night before they get dropped over, so she'll be slaughtered tomorrow? Yeah. You're going to be slaughtered tomorrow? And she doesn't know. Is there anyone in here? Do you think it's kind of a lot to know? I just look at it from my perspective, like, whenever I ask these, like, ethical issues, I just think, like, what would I want? Yeah. Yeah. Would you want to know or not? Of course not. I'd rather just be... If someone had to kill me, I'd rather just, you know, go to sleep and not wake up. Yeah. You know, but... I would also not want to be killed as well. No, I know, yeah. I would prefer not to be killed and chopped up into pieces and fed to my father, but... Maybe we should take her for a... Maybe we should take her for a vegan meal. Like, a really... Somewhere really good will select somewhere really good, because she's going to be... And then you can come around mine for a barbecue. As long as there's... Linda McCartney won't. Yeah, Linda McCartney's only. Okay. Thanks so much. Thanks for your time. Don't worry. Thank you.