IT’S an interesting and certainly controversial concept to open the doors of an abattoir to the public to help people accept the reality of slaughter and the role it plays in feeding them.
It’s a bloody business. Even for those who know all too well where their meat comes from, it can still be confronting.
In an abattoir, unlike with a home kill, the sheer volume of bodies being “processed” – a term now being categorised as sanitary and counterproductive language in the discussion with consumers – can add to the shock factor for the uninitiated.
This “open door policy” pitch to industry therefore isn’t without its dangers. The public needs context, background, somebody to explain the hows and whys of what they’re seeing.
Seeing stock slaughtered might have an important role to play on the road to the broader public accepting and understanding the role animals need to play in the food chain, but, seeing this sort of thing for the first time is bound to evoke emotion.
The message, “a good life – a good death”, while sounding catchy, and which was pitched as a message to explain the philosophy of an industry that respected it’s animals, clearly counts on the assumption that people agree on an abattoir being a good place to die.
There’s also the question of who pays? Is there a clear cost-benefit for an abattoir, which is also a business, to go to such lengths? It would mean major revamps to its infrastructure.
On the flipside, we also can’t ignore the declining market share of beef and lamb and the apparent lack of trust for abattoirs from not just the general public, but also a certain percentage of livestock producers.
So perhaps including the public in the process of slaughter might actually help engagement in a positive way. After all, back in the day when it was common for people to slaughter their own stock, vegetarians were pretty rare. Meat is also an efficient way for consumers to get large amounts of nutrients in a sensible sized meal.
It might also help to better equip the public with the understanding they need to comprehend and even question the emotional pleas from activist groups and in turn help avoid knee-jerk reactions by poll-wary politicians.
An open door policy therefore might not be the whole answer, but could certainly play an important step in regaining trust with consumers.