![]() The loins veer off down one line, ribs are cut out by another line of workers, bacon and skin veer off to their own conveyor belts.Ĭardboard boxes about the size of small jacuzzis are everywhere, being filled with up to 2,000 pounds of meat.Īll the workers are encased in plastic smocks that come down to their knees. To remove hair, the carcasses are dipped in hot water, beaten by paddles inside a machine and enveloped in flames.įrom there the pig carcasses proceed along a massive disassembly line: to the head room, the casing room, the chitterlings room, the marination room.įrom a viewing area inside one large processing room, you stand above a maze of conveyor belts along which workers wield knives. Jugular veins are cut, and troughs on the floor collect the drainage. The pigs' bodies are then hung by their feet onto overhead tracks in a sweltering part of the plant that smells of excrement and blood. Gassing causes less trauma for the animals and creates a better product less muscle constriction means the meat is more tender, says Dennis Pittman, director of corporate communications. One by one, the pigs are guided into one of four gas chambers where seven pigs are killed at once. The pigs are unloaded from tractor-trailers into a series of concrete corrals that hold at most 15,000 pigs for an average of four hours. Animal activists hailed Smithfield's decision and hoped other companies would follow suit. The sows can stand or lie down but not turn around. The 2-by-7-foot crates confine sows during their four-month pregnancies. Smithfield's contract farmers will be expected to do the same. Last year, Smithfield announced it would phase out gestation crates at its farms by 2017. Of the company's 14,000 US employees, 10,000 work at facilities in Tar Heel, Wilson, Kinston, Elon, Clayton and Clinton. Having seen a small slaughterhouse operation, Andrea Weigl of News & Observer wanted to tour Smithfield Packing's plant south of Fayetteville. ![]()
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