Farmers, food, hospitality, animal welfare and conservation groups have called for urgent Government action in response to figures showing the UK has lost more than 90% of its abattoirs over the past few decades.
Abattoir numbers have fallen to just 200, compared with 2,500 in the 1970s, leaving farmers without vital local slaughter facilities and putting British food production, rural businesses and animal welfare increasingly at risk.
A 2025 survey of 850 farmers and land managers found that two-thirds had experienced difficulty accessing suitable abattoir services, while one-third had seen an abattoir they used close.
If their current abattoir closed, 43% said they would no longer be able to sell meat locally and almost three in ten said they might have to close their meat business altogether. Nearly six in ten said their business would not be profitable without direct or local selling.
In a joint letter signed by over 150 organisations, businesses and individuals, including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Sir Roger Daltrey and Clarkson Farm’s Charlie Ireland, the Abattoir Sector Group (ASG) is urging the government to recognise local slaughter capacity as essential food and economic infrastructure and take urgent action to secure a sustainable network across the UK.
It also includes all 10 National Parks in England, the National Trust, the NFU, the Soil Association, the Wildlife Trusts, the Sustainable Food Trust and Compassion in World Farming.
Calls to government
The coalition has warned that without urgent intervention, further closures will undermine the Government’s ambitions for food security, economic growth and a thriving British farming sector.
It is calling on the Prime Minister to bring together Defra and the Treasury, alongside the devolved governments and relevant public bodies, to work with industry to secure a sustainable network of local and regional abattoirs.
It is asking governments across the UK to:
- Recognise local slaughter capacity as essential infrastructure, ensuring it is considered alongside transport, energy and skills in economic planning.
- Urgently review regulation and charging, including Official Veterinarian costs, inspection arrangements, regulatory thresholds and opportunities for digitalisation.
- Establish targeted funding for local abattoirs and feasibility work, enabling local areas to identify gaps and develop investable proposals, including co-operatives, mobile facilities and public-private partnerships.
The ASG says local solutions will be essential because the needs of farming communities differ across the country and warns that if Britain wants resilient domestic food production, thriving rural economies and a transition to nature-friendly farming, it cannot afford to lose more local abattoirs.
Infrastructure
ASG chair Christopher Price said: “You cannot have British meat without the infrastructure to process it. Government talks about food security, backing British farmers and delivering growth across the country. But every time a local abattoir closes, farmers lose another route to market, animals may have to travel further and another piece of Britain’s food infrastructure disappears.
“We are now at a tipping point. We need smarter, proportionate and genuinely risk-based regulation that maintains high standards without driving viable local businesses out of existence. Government needs to act before more of this essential infrastructure is lost.”
“As slaughter capacity becomes concentrated in fewer, larger processors, farmers can face longer journeys and lose access to services such as private kill, cutting, packing and specialist processing. Local meat businesses can lose their route to market altogether.”
He stressed that the impact extends far beyond abattoirs themselves, with farms, butchers, farm shops, hospitality businesses and rural communities all depending upon functioning local supply chains. The loss of local facilities can also undermine native breed production, conservation grazing and nature-friendly farming, he added.
Patrick Holden, CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, said: “There can be no such thing as local meat without local abattoirs, yet previous governments have allowed this vital infrastructure to disappear, at exactly the moment when they should be laser-focused on securing a resilient food system for the future.”
Chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall said: “Small scale farmers producing top quality meat from higher welfare livestock are one of the bedrocks of local, community based food networks all over the UK.
“The demise of local abattoirs has been devastating for their businesses. A well regulated system of local and mobile slaughter would give them a lifeline. There are only upsides to this, for animal welfare, for the economics of small scale farming, and for consumers and hospitality businesses up and down the country. So let’s make it happen.”