9 hours ago
‘Jeremy Clarkson is telling people the truth about abattoirs – I applaud him'
Slaughterman David Partridge can't answer when I ask what his abattoir smells like. 'I can't smell anything,' he explains, suggesting, slightly irritably, that once I get in there, I should tell him. He gives short shrift. He started hosing blood and skinning carcasses aged nine, working here in his teens.
The business was first opened by his grandfather Frederick in 1880, then run by his father Charles, although older generations ran another abattoir with a butcher's shop on the nearby high street. So the smell to him is simply undetectable; it's the air he has always breathed, it's part of him – and he doesn't have much patience with newcomers who don't understand that.
I've asked because smell is what you brace for, perhaps more than the sight of carcasses, when you walk through the plastic strip curtains into the closed world of a slaughterhouse for the first time. Partridge, 72, has allowed The Telegraph to visit his, adjoining his farm in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, on a Thursday morning about half an hour after the killing of a 300kg ('dead weight') 18-month-old bullock, and an hour after the killing of eight lambs, which now all sway on hooks, their heads and organs removed. Yet the odour is not the metallic tang of flesh and blood I had expected. It is something more earthy, a faintly warm, manure-like smell of animal.
Partridge seems happy that I'm surprised. He is a prickly man, but proud; pride is broadcast unspoken by the crisp, short-sleeved shirt and blue and yellow striped tie under his blue overalls, and his neatly combed grey curls. He brings out photographs of his ancestors, including grandfather Frederick at his gas lamp-lit butcher's shop in the late 19th century. 'It was taken to show off,' Partridge chuckles. 'Look at the fat,' he says, pointing excitedly to the bounty of carcasses.
Partridge, whose own son, Andrew, 48, with his dad's blue eyes and quick smile, now runs their butcher's shop, Partridge CE & Son, down the road, nods that he feels the hefty legacy of all this sepia. The expectation to uphold 'the reputation we have always had for good quality'.
Now it is at risk of being lost forever.
Despite continuing to toil from 6am to 6pm as his dad did, as his grandfather did, at risk of regular injury – he has broken his ribs twice when livestock kicked out – Partridge is continually in his overdraft, assailed by a storm of rising costs. These shoot from all directions: rising utility bills and official Food Standards Agency (FSA) vet and inspector fees; bureaucracy; and chancellor Rachel Reeves' national insurance employer contribution and minimum wage hikes.
These come on top of the discontinuation of a small abattoir fund introduced by the last government for capital grants, and an FSA discount scheme for vets' fees for small abattoirs hanging in the balance. A reluctant young workforce also adds to the difficulties; the average age of a slaughterman (slaughterwomen do seem rare) is in the 60s.
This is by no means Partridge's individual battle. He's actually a survivor, one of fewer and fewer small abattoirs in Britain (classified as processing under 5,000 animals annually). It has been reported that the number of small abattoirs in England fell from 64 in 2019 to just 49 in 2023, with five closing in 2024. A 2022 FSA report claimed small abattoirs closing at the rate of 10 per cent per year – set to vanish completely by 2030. Partridge says there used to be seven local to him – now he's alone.
It took Jeremy Clarkson to bring the issue to public attention in the latest series of Clarkson's Farm. His own local abattoir, Long Compton in Shipston-On-Stour, Warwickshire, just 13 miles from his farm, has closed. This leaves him to travel further to get his livestock slaughtered at greater cost and stress to the animals. He has been forced to liftshare to make it viable. Once there, large abattoirs do not usually accept rare breeds. 'The legislation from the Government makes it virtually impossible to run an abattoir,' a flummoxed Clarkson complained.
Partridge is uncharacteristically exuberant when it comes to Clarkson. 'Jeremy is telling people what the truth is and I'm all for it,' he says. ' Countryfile just talks about silly birds… [but] people listen to Jeremy, I applaud him. He tells it as it is.'
Another of Clarkson's neighbours, first generation farmer John Weaver, 38, now travels 40 miles to use Partridge's abattoir after the closure of Long Compton. Partridge says some 200 farmers come to him now from as far afield as Ludlow, and he averages the slaughter of 60 to 70 animals a week.
Weaver, who has diversified to sell direct from his farm shop, lobbied a collection of local shareholders – including, he says, a vegetarian – to save Long Compton (to no avail, the owner sold elsewhere). He is now exploring further fundraising to try and build a new one. Clarkson came to his first meeting.
'Jeremy's concerns were the same as everyone else, of welfare and viability,' he says. 'He was one of us in the room… it's adding masses of food miles on to his production.
'Everyone is being pushed further away, where is that going to stop? If we don't do something now it will be too late.'
He's eloquent, but you can hear the panic. 'You stack up time, mileage, fuel, the margins selling meat directly from your farm are shrinking considerably,' he says. 'We are trying to do anything to secure ourselves, we would have to rethink big style (if the farm shop closed).'
David Bean of The Countryside Alliance is equally passionate. He explains that for farmers, selling meat locally is 'one of the ways they're adapting to a harsh business environment to survive'. He says: 'Every time a small abattoir closes, local farmers have to travel further to bring their animals to slaughter and the provenance of their products frays a little more. Many of us are rightly enthusiastic about buying local… but abattoirs are essential to our ability to do that.'
Weaver's hope to 'buck the trend' is admirable, but he says his group badly needs the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to support them financially. 'They have acknowledged there is an issue and they are willing to assist but they haven't got any funding. It is essential [they offer support],' he says.
DEFRA declined to comment specifically. It did acknowledge the closure of the small abattoir fund last September but gave no reason, only agreeing: 'small abattoirs provide a competitive route to market for producers of rare and native breeds and we're committed to working with the meat processing sector in tackling the challenges they face', while reiterating a £5 billion investment in the farming sector.
David Barton, the livestock board chairman of the National Farmers Union (NFU) is clear. 'It is important DEFRA recognises their role in the rural economy and ensures the right support and investment is available. As a start, we'd like to see a review into the way official controls are applied, as well as maintaining the discount scheme for regulatory checks for small and medium sized abattoirs.'
Back at his abattoir, Partridge badly needs the help. His electricity bill is around £1,200 a month. The fridges are vast, you can feel the cold through the 12ft slate-grey door. Water, of which he uses some 140,000 litres a month (largely to hose down), is £500 to £600 a month. The cost of disposing of waste – such as carcass heads – is around £200 a week. He says they have all risen.
Fees for FSA vets and meat hygiene inspectors (who must be present for killings) have increased too, by nearly 18 per cent for vets and over 11 per cent for inspectors. Small abattoirs are charged the same as large operations. 'It costs £600 for four days,' says Partridge. He points out a silent man in a white coat in the slaughterhouse inspecting the carcasses in the hanging room under the deafening whirr of the chillers. 'He's checking the kidneys for infection,' says Partridge, as the vet stamps them.
The FSA doesn't shy from these upped costs. Dr James Cooper, the deputy director of Food Policy says: 'While we understand concerns about rising charges, the reality of global vet shortages and wider pressures being felt across the economy mean these checks now cost more to carry out.'
Nonetheless, after a meeting in June, FSA chair Susan Jebb acknowledged both that 'smaller businesses face a disproportionately greater cost of regulation' and noted 'the importance of the discount [scheme] to their viability'. She added that the board would 'develop proposals for a potential new scheme' but that the decision would ultimately rest with the government.
Partridge has had to install eight CCTV cameras at the cost of around £4,000. But the employer national insurance hike was the final nail. 'To save money we no longer trade in the abattoir or shop on Mondays,' he says. Do they make a profit? He grunts. 'Barely,' he says. 'What saves us is we own the property. If we rented we wouldn't be here.'
Whatever your views on the reality of a slaughterhouse's work, it is sad to think of this historic business falling silent. Partridge and his team are passionate about what they do. They work intently in the chill, surrounded by metal pulleys and hooks silently butchering hanging carcasses which gleam under the strip lights. There is a kind of reverence around the vast swaying bullock as it is heaved from the slaughter hall where beasts are shot after being stunned, and lambs and pigs are electrocuted.
The butcher's shop, 'carnivore diet' sign outside, is teeming with produce, all meat from the farm with no mileage; marbled, ruby red cuts, plump sausages, homemade pies. Andrew mixes faggots in the kitchen. This could all be at risk if the abattoir closes. They would need to source their meat elsewhere as there isn't an abattoir near enough to travel to. 'And people come to us for quality,' says Partridge. You can tell he's thinking about that black and white photograph.
Perhaps his most moving words are spoken about his livestock. 'I really care about my animals,' he explains. 'We don't love them,' he corrects me, 'we respect them.' The animal rights protesters who have shown up at the farm might not agree. Yet he is adamant the animals should not travel long distances for slaughter. 'The stress levels are not good for them,' he says.
He grapples to find the words for the business which has been his life. 'I just want to keep it going,' he says. 'I don't want it to finish.'
