A mobile slaughterhouse installed on a farm, March 14, 2022 in Charolles (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
“You can eat meat without feeling guilty”: in Burgundy, a mobile slaughterhouse, unique in France, moves around farms to spare animals the stress of the last trip, thus “proving” that responsible breeding is possible.
The interminable local road winds through the Charolais bocage, land of meat animals, bypassing the grassy meadows and the hills covered with thick forests.
At the end of a muddy path, Arnaud Kubiaczyk’s farm is just big enough to accommodate in its yard the three semi-trailers of 25 tons each which, once unfolded like fairground machines, form the mobile slaughterhouse which will kill five of the 140 Hereford oxen of the modest breeding.
In the first semi, a door lets in the animal which will be there – as in conventional slaughterhouses – stunned then slaughtered with a perforating rod pistol, before being cut up.
The carcass will go in the second truck and the waste in the third.
The device is installed just at the exit of the barn: for its last trip, the ox will only have to travel a few tens of meters.
“Before, I had to take them to the slaughterhouse, 30 minutes away. Here, it takes a minute or two,” welcomes Arnaud.
“The animals are killed where they were born and raised. It’s the same place, the same smells and the animals graze quietly until the last minute”, explains the breeder, showing his Herefords with their mouths overflowing with hay.
A breeder accompanies one of his cows to a mobile slaughterhouse installed on his farm, on March 14, 2022 in Charolles (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
“The stress is minimal”, judges Arnaud, who discovered this new system in France “on Facebook”.
“I had heard of mobile slaughterhouses in Sweden. I went to see and I was amazed: it was like magic, we stopped the stress of the animals”, explains Émilie Jeannin, initiator of the project and operator herself. of “sustainable” breeding, favoring as much time as possible on natural meadows.
“We refine our animals for years and all this work can be ruined in a few hours” with the stress of slaughter, which is not only mistreatment but also reduces the tenderness of the meat, underlines the breeder.
– “The taste of respect” –
Since her visit to Sweden in 2016, it has taken six years to complete the project: find the million and a half euros necessary for financing, then obtain approval, whose file “is 180 pages”, sighs Émilie .
A breeder accompanies one of his cows to a mobile slaughterhouse installed on his farm, on March 14, 2022 in Charolles (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
After six months of tests, since the end of August, the final authorization was granted on February 23. “The important thing was to prove that it is operational,” explains Émilie.
“Yes, the meat is more expensive, 10 to 15%”, she acknowledges, but “customers are ready to pay more” because “you can eat it without feeling guilty”.
While “twenty” similar projects are in the works in France, according to Émilie, the breeder concedes that it will be necessary to wait until June to have enough “recoil” on financial profitability.
But “Le Bœuf éthique”, a company created to market meat, already sells “everything we get in”. And the customers are “multiplying”: 30% individuals and 70% professionals, including restaurants and butchers, who want “virtuous” meat, explains Émilie.
A breeder speaks with the manager of a mobile slaughterhouse installed on his farm, March 14, 2022 in Charolles (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
Because the company, which has the slogan “the taste of respect”, does not content itself with eliminating the stress of transport to the slaughterhouse. It also calls for responsible slaughter.
“Here, we have no imposed rates. We take the time, for example to see if the animal is well stunned”, confirms the manager of the mobile slaughterhouse, Guillaume. Two animals will be killed today, and three tomorrow, while a traditional slaughter often does 80 an hour.
Defending “the well-being of the animal”, the initiative also intends to ensure that of the breeder thanks to a “fair remuneration”.
A breeder chooses the animals he will drive to a mobile slaughterhouse installed on his farm, March 14, 2022 in Charolles (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
“Not only do I have no transport costs until the slaughter but, in addition, the Ethical Beef buys at 5.20 per kg of carcass. It’s about 80 cents better, or 8 to 9,000 euros more per year”, welcomes Arnaud Kubiaczyk.
“Quality meat, ecology and fair compensation”, a winning trilogy which, the breeder hopes, will “restore our image a little in these times of + agribashing +”.
© 2022 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends with the buttons below.
