From paddock to plate

When I first started raising Gloucester Old Spots for their delicious pork it was but a short journey from their home in the orchard to an unassuming abattoir in the local village. They had been killing pigs, sheep and cattle there for more than half a century, but after the owner passed away no one came forward to take it on. The lack of enthusiasm was unsurprising, given the increasingly onerous regulations involved with running an abattoir, especially, it seems, one that is rural, traditional and small. That year, instead of driving my porkers on a fiveminute journey to Nunnington, I took them an hour east towards Scarborough where a small slaughterhouse stood behind a butcher’s shop celebrated for pork pies. Next came an even longer haul to the other side of the North York Moors, but within eight months that abattoir had been forced to close down, too.

Ironically, regulations that could have benefited animal welfare have instead resulted in increased levels of stress due to much longer