Pig Gas Chamber Activists Exposed Is Now Rubble

For decades, hundreds of thousands of pigs were killed every year at a slaughterhouse in Ashton-under-Lyne near Manchester. Today, the slaughterhouse is rubble.

The Pilgrim’s facility closed in 2023 after around 70 years of operation. It has now been demolished, including the carbon dioxide gas chamber investigated by animal rights activist Joey Carbstrong and his team. Before its closure, Carbstrong says approximately 750,000 pigs were killed there every year.

Inside The Gas Chamber

Most people who buy pig flesh will never see what happens inside a carbon dioxide gas chamber. Pigs are placed into metal cages or gondolas and lowered into an atmosphere containing a high concentration of CO2. The method is routinely used to kill pigs in Britain.

In February 2021, Carbstrong’s team obtained footage from inside the working gas chamber at Ashton. He described it as the first footage of its kind from inside a UK facility.

The footage appeared to show pigs panicking, vocalising and struggling.

This was particularly significant because activists had spent years hearing pigs screaming from outside the slaughterhouse. Carbstrong says workers had previously suggested the noises were caused by pigs fighting or mating. Once cameras went inside, those explanations became considerably harder to maintain.

The footage was eventually published by The Guardian on the 2nd of May 2023.

Two weeks later, Pilgrim’s announced plans to close the slaughterhouse.

Did Activism Close It?

Pilgrim’s attributed the closure to unfavourable market conditions and difficulties modernising or expanding the ageing facility. That may well have been part of the story. But Carbstrong argues that the investigation and resulting publicity were the final push.

The footage spread widely online, with related videos reportedly attracting around two million views. Carbstrong also claims that two senior figures involved in the pig supply chain and agriculture left the company shortly after publication. An alleged insider at another Pilgrim’s slaughterhouse later told him that managers had discussed Carbstrong frequently, increased security and privately acknowledged that the Ashton investigation had contributed to the closure.

None of this proves that activism alone closed the slaughterhouse. But the timeline is difficult to ignore. Companies also have an obvious reason not to announce that campaigners have successfully damaged their operations. As Carbstrong puts it, publicly crediting activists would demonstrate that activism works. And that could encourage more of it.

Hundreds Of Thousands Fewer Deaths

The closure also removed a substantial amount of slaughter capacity.

Carbstrong estimates that Ashton accounted for nearly 7% of pigs killed nationally. He also says that around nine major CO2 gas chamber facilities kill approximately 90% of pigs slaughtered in the UK. That makes the industry considerably more concentrated than many people might assume.

In 2023, 1.1 million fewer pigs were killed in the UK than the previous year, a fall of around 10% and the lowest annual number since 2013. Carbstrong argues that removing a slaughterhouse capable of killing around 750,000 pigs annually must have contributed. Again, there are other factors. Fewer pigs were reportedly being bred. But animals cannot simply be redirected endlessly between facilities. Other slaughterhouses have limits, while transporting pigs further creates additional costs and logistical problems.

Closing one enormous killing facility can therefore have consequences far beyond its gates.

Activism Does Not Need Permission To Work

The most important lesson from Ashton may be psychological. Animal agriculture is routinely presented as something too large, too established and too powerful to seriously challenge. Then one of its major killing facilities disappears.

Years of vigils put attention on the slaughterhouse. Investigators obtained footage the industry would never voluntarily show consumers. Millions of people saw what happened inside. Public scrutiny followed. The slaughterhouse closed. Now even the building is gone. We should be careful about claiming a simple cause and effect when several factors contributed to the closure. But we should be equally careful about pretending activism achieves nothing simply because the companies being targeted refuse to give activists credit. There is an even clearer example in the same source.

Hogwood pig farm in Warwickshire was subjected to four undercover investigations by Viva! between 2017 and 2019 and later featured in the documentary Hogwood: A Modern Horror Story. The farm is now due to close permanently, and its planning statement reportedly references Viva!’s investigations as one of the contributing factors. Industries built on exploiting animals are not invulnerable. They depend on infrastructure. They depend on public acceptance. Above all, they depend on money continuing to flow.

The gas chamber at Ashton once killed hundreds of thousands of pigs every year. Now there is flattened ground where it once stood. That is not the end of pig slaughter in Britain. But it is proof that these places are not permanent.