 Hello everyone so there's been some huge breaking news about two days ago some articles started coming out stating that pilgrims which is one of the UK's biggest port producers and also the company that I recently exposed in my gas chamber investigation have announced that they're shutting down their Ashton underlying site the same site that me and my team investigated and exposed about two weeks ago it's now national news what they're saying was the reason is obviously not the investigation they're not going to say that are they but I just want to give you a little bit of a timeline and get you to make your own mind up so their announcement comes two weeks after our gas chamber investigation reached two million views across social media in its first week of release so that's two million views thousands of comments and following the release of the gas investigation the the Guardian also did an exclusive article a really detailed article the article reached number one in environment and also made their top 10 most viewed in the world across the Guardian so that's some pretty bad PR now about four days or so before the article was released pilgrims actually found out about this footage because they need to get a right to reply from pilgrims start to show the pilgrim staff this footage and give them access they also gave access to a crisis management kind of PR person so this wasn't a small deal for pilgrims you could imagine that they were kind of a bit concerned this is a very very bad publicity for their company now in response to the Guardian article the pilgrims uh representative said there's nothing to identify that this is our site and it would be inappropriate for us to comment on that basis and they also said that the food standards agency was on site during a time that this footage was filmed and we had no issues raised in the timeframe you provided very interesting so they denied they wanted to deny that or they they there's no evidence it's their site so this is a bit of denial there from them and then two days right this is this is very interesting too so just work out this timeline two days after the the Guardian article was released Mark Hayton pilgrims UK's pig supply chain director was set to follow former UK agricultural director Barty Kay out the door in what's understood to have been a sudden development so we got this big guide a big director guy at pilgrims leaving pilgrims right in a sudden development now two days after we released that investigation maybe Mark's in the investigation thought this is bad publicity who knows whether he got fired whether they thought we're going to fire someone here or whether he just walked out the door after seeing the footage and this publicity is too bad I don't actually know but that's just an interesting coincidence isn't it then two days after that all of us activists we went down there for a demo show and banners show and signs to all the people driving past there we had the footage playing the guards were denying it's the footage saying it's uh it was Australian footage so I think the staff at pilgrims were like sending the message out that it's not after it's not footage from this plan it's not footage from Ashton basically it's Australian footage they're trying to claim it's from here so they were doing all these denial tactics and even the staff even though it's not the staff's fault this they're not the ones accountable it's interesting that that message that it's not their site uh went down to the staff members and I started uploading these videos too and I was saying oh something big is coming and they won't be able to deny it for for longer so don't try to say anything and now they're just denying it's their slaughterhouse but they won't be able to deny that for much longer all of this pressure and I've got a large social media following I'll reach a lot of people we've got media they know right pilgrims know the documentary's coming out because we had to send to them for our own uh right to reply it's like a legal thing you have to do for Ofcom they know about what I'm planning to do and I remember saying in the video everyone in Manchester is going to know about this place soon everyone in Manchester is going to notice what's going on in here so they know and they're under extreme amounts of pressure the Guardian article is still up because they have sufficient evidence that it's the Ashton site because I delivered it to them it's up there forever like this footage is up there forever it's very damning this footage um the footage is horrible horrifying pigs screaming to death dying in their own feces and this is supposed to be the best of the best this place now this has made national news what's baffling to me these newspapers aren't mentioning the the expose like Manchester news have done an article on the on the place shutting down but we've sent them a release for the footage and they haven't reported on that um and they even used a photo they come down and took photos of us while we're out the front of this Lorde House and they didn't report on the the expose that happened there and a lot of these uh newspapers we sent it out to and they didn't report on it but they're reporting on this really this is of quite an important detail to miss out and uh you know the Guardian was a massive national very credible newspaper and they do so much due diligence when they do these articles it took a long time and they're forgetting to mention they've just been exposed badly and there's a massive documentary coming out as well this is a huge place this place kills nearly a million pigs a year it's like six 750 000 a year and considering only 11 million pigs uh comparable to other countries 11 million pigs it's that's a lot a big number but uh 11 million pigs killed each year in the UK and this site here was responsible for 750 000 of them nearly 10 percent it's like well it's like six or seven percent or something that's like that's crazy I don't think I'm going to call this a coincidence even though like you know the industry will never admit that activists have have pushed them to this this point I think it's the pressure now that there's been vitals running here for years there's been different protests from different activist groups at this place for years it's in a suburban area there's always activism going on there there's been multiple different I've been going there since 2017 making big videos there and and uh all the amazing different activists who have done different types of protests there I think it's a PR move because with the upcoming film coming out and this video coming out I think this was just the final straw that pushed them over the edge now the UK pork industry has been failing as well and they already um dropped down their site to four days a week anyway this site they were already so weak and then this come out and they just probably thought it's not even worth keeping it open let's let's shut it down now because it was two weeks I have to re-release this investigation two weeks now the timing yes they've said that they you know they they possibly want to close certain sites before that but I think this was just the final straw for them 100 percent there's no there's no question they're saying that the closure was part of review a review prompted by unfavorable market conditions and they're splitting 90 jobs from the 542 workers which I'll get to the workers uh because it's I don't wish any bad on the workers some workers who are bad people who torture who are deliberately cruel but most workers are just working there because they don't have a better option so 90 new jobs will be split between Spolding, Westerly and Brombra Spolding and Westerly are both gas chambers as well so the company said the UK pork sector was facing significant challenges and that the decline of the UK sale heard by 15% cheap imports the loss of farms and post pandemic recovery challenges so that's what they're saying they're facing all those things Rachel Baldwin of Pilgrims UK said the decision to propose the closure of our Ashton site has not been taken lightly so this is a huge decision from them huge decision and you're saying that this investigation didn't influence it at all come on we all know that they're in a crisis mode when this come out because this is damning footage it's the first of its kind in the UK and Pilgrims is a massive company they represent 25 percent of the UK pork market they're they're they're massive they're huge and they try all this propaganda it's all humane it's all they're they're just they're just you know not good this is the interesting part here the age and location of Ashton it's been there for years right and a smack bang in a suburban area with a densely populated area right means that there's no feasible opportunity to modernize or grow the site so in one breath they're saying the reason is an unfavorable market there's been significant challenges in the pork industry loss of farm cheap imports all this in the next sentence Rachel saying there's no feasible opportunity to modernize or grow the site why would you be thinking of expanding Ashton when you're going through all these challenges why are you are you going through all these challenges the market's bad and you want to expand Ashton no that's that sounds like a contradiction so one of the reasons is we can't grow the site because it's in a bit suburban area even though it's been there for decades right I think it wasn't about growing Ashton I think the market was unfavorable yes that put a bit of pressure on this site already so this site was already like a weak link and now with this investigation film coming out which they're all aware of everyone at Pilgrims all the company all the staff are all aware of this investigation that's come out got two million views it's an article they can't get removed I think it's a PR move because they just think you know the publicity is going to be so bad publicity is so bad they're not going to stop these activists there's already pressure on this site there's already other things to consider it's going to be a much better decision just get rid of that site altogether so I think that's that's what happened of course they'll never admit it but we all know what's happening in the background we all know what they've been trying to do and we all know that this is actually a huge deal that the first gas chamber footage in the UK has been exposed and there's further details coming out in the documentary now let's get to the workers there because 542 workers are going to lose their job and I don't want to see these workers and their families in hardship because you've got to you've got to think of it like this I mean as a vegan you might think oh that anyone works at a slaughterhouse they're a bad person circumstances force them into that kind of job because they can't get better employment you know like that might be place that offers employment and they just go to work there because they need money and they're in hard times so that is not their fault that the the area they're born into or that they live in the best kind of job available to them is one of the slaughterhouses many people do leave pilgrims because they can't that site because they can't handle it they are not the enemy the workers I mean there's obviously some workers that are psychologically disturbed and you see the footage of people abusing the animals in there and stuff like that but there's just some people that work in different areas in the slaughterhouse and aren't abusing animals and the real enemy is the companies that make money off of you know the torture and suffering in these gas chambers and other industries that that murder animals you know they're they're they're capitalizing off of the demand that people have animal products who are completely hoodwinked by the the marketing and making a bunch of profit so these people that are profiteering off of the animals being gas chambered are much more the enemy than the people who are just working within the system to anyone who's lost their job at ashton this fight is not with you and I hope that you get back on your feet and there's there's other jobs and avenues that you can you can work in and I just want to say like like like join us in fighting these people really join us in in in trying to to get these uh these money driven animal abusers uh just abolished in their most recent financial report listen to this pilgrims recording operating loss of 16 million pounds in 2021 okay they're losing a bunch of money right but activism is not working it's not the plant-based vegan movement or the animal rights movement that's doing anything they're just losing they lost 16 million pounds in 2021 off the back of challenges facing the pork sector right so markets really bad they're losing all this money but they still managed to pay their directors their directors right 1.73 million pounds in the same year so the directors are loving it like 1.73 million pounds but their low paid workers are being made redundant absolute crazy injustice it seems like the directors still may uh figure out a way to to get 1.73 million pounds here all their workers catch you later now this is a huge win but I just want to say all you activists out there activism works exposés work these investigations work pressure works advocacy works vigils work uh bringing eyes to these places work it just goes to show how weak the meat industry actually is if this is the kind of thing that can just topple them right topple them over the edge like because it's two weeks after investigation and this was just like the final straw they're just like you know what taking all this into account taking our financial losses into account taking this expose a into account we have to shut down a site that kills 750 000 pigs and they any that this represents like 50 of the pigs they kill something like that don't quote on that but it's like a large proportion of the amount of pigs that that pilgrims kill are on this ashton site we need to continue our work pressuring this area I mean there's a lot of activists that pressure the pork industry and it just goes to show how easy they topple over I want to give you an example in Australia uh Christelle force and um farm transparency exposed Australian food group it was on the tv over there and a little later Australian food group shut down because they were forced to put CCTV in and that just goes to show how weak Australian food group were that that an expose a made uh and and the thing that toppled over it's probably like oh cctv they're going to see how cruel the pigs are it's not worth it for us we're going to lose a bunch of money keeping it open or or they couldn't afford it it's just these small things these small margins can cause slaughterhouses to shut down um and now it's happened in the UK tip them over the edge tip them over the edge and um this really should motivate you um I just want to say that just because this one site which has been there for years and it's huge this is a big deal especially in the activist community and it's a huge deal just in the community in Ashton you know that to smell the crap that to hear the screams but this does not mean the job is done pilgrims still have two more slaughterhouses that are gas chambers that they're going to move uh people to we still need to target the demand we still need to do everything like I mean yes it's a big win it's a big it harms them probably a lot um targeting supply chain is pretty important but also in his target the demand chain still and we still need to keep fighting so so basically pilgrims did this as a to to avoid the bad PR that's coming it ain't gonna work it ain't gonna work you've got two more sites there's more gas chambers everywhere um and there's more industries that you're involved with that you exploit and kill animals and and also this is just uh taking into account the animal rights violations across the UK as a whole all right this is just one part of the battle I just want to also say my documentary is coming out soon we're in the post production stages I'm very excited to release this and please please we need you to all get behind this and you know please join the movement and just stay tuned and keep following and supporting our work because we really got some big things coming and I'm really just itching to get this film out there and get back out there and you know just get back on the into the grassroots movement and and get some stuff done you know what I mean so thank you everyone for your support what do you think about this do you think that they're never going to admit it are they they lie they gaslight they use marketing and propaganda they're never going to admit that that the vegan movement that um activism investigations had anything to do with their decision but they are sweating and this is this here just goes to show how weak the meat industry really is when you just get you could just have one one extra element and boom they topple over so let's see what we can do as you know the this is very um just motivation it's just very motivating you know what I mean it's very motivating and um yeah just wait for that documentaries coming soon it's got to be massive biggest thing ever worked on in my life but it's taken years and years and years to get to this point and uh looks like since we released that footage early bang they toppled over so imagine what will happen with the film you know so yeah thank you all for watching thank you all for your support and see you all soon