Revamped Shropshire abattoir 'will be best in UK'

ABP is investing approximately £20 million in its Ellesmere facility, which combines the abattoir and a maturation and meat packing facility to make one of the only places in the country where the complete process of cutting, maturing and packaging meat happens on a single site.

Now work has started on rebuilding the abattoir and areas around lorry movements, screening the local area from much of the light and traffic and improving the standard of the facility.

The move will also see the plant recycling its own water.

• £20m work to rebuild Shropshire abattoir begins

ABP's agriculture director Stuart Roberts said: "It's about putting our people in the facility that will allow them to do the best job possible, and ultimately coming up with the cleanest, most hygienic carcasses you can create."

The abattoir will be redesigned to ensure that animals move naturally towards the point at which they are slaughtered, under designs laid out by renowned animal care specialist Dr Temple Grandin.

General manager Steve Thompson, who described welfare of the animals as "paramount", said: "It will meet the highest standards of the industry. It will also be far more efficient than the old abattoir, with straighter lines, and that's a big part of it, and the factory being enclosed will reduce exterior noise."

The plant's maturation and packing plants will continue to operate as normal throughout the 12 to 14-month refit. In the next eight weeks the current abattoir will be dismantled, followed by drainage works lasting 12 weeks. The rebuild will begin after that, using a number of local builders and hauliers.

Mr Bardsley added: "Although the closure of the old abattoir at ABP is a short-term blow for many local people and could make life more difficult over the next year for local farmers used to taking livestock to Ellesmere, this investment by ABP shows that this major international company shares our confidence in the future.

"We are right to be proud of Shropshire's agriculture and the part we play in food production for Great Britain."

ABP hit the news earlier in the year when some products from its frozen food division were involved in the horse meat scandal, and Mr Roberts said that while that had no effect on its fresh meat abattoirs in Shropshire, it had seen the same standards carried at Ellesmere rolled out into its frozen foods division.

That involves a three-stage approval process to prevent third-party products entering its factories.