UNDERCOVER IN THE SQUALID PIG FACTORIES THAT BREED SUPERBUGS

The bodies have been piled into a heap. A tangle of snouts and tails and trotters and ears. Some are bathing in a pool of liquid that’s gathered on the concrete floor. Others have facial injuries. Blood runs from their noses. One looks as though its back end has been ripped open, with leg bones and tendons visible. Another has a gaping wound on its pink underside.

Elsewhere, within a dark shed, pigs are shuffling around on a slatted wooden floor, being fattened up for the slaughterhouse. In a nearby room, female pigs lie confined in rows of metal cages, their young scrambling around to feed. There’s a green bin here, the type used for household waste. Inside there’s more dead bodies. This time it’s the piglets.

These disturbing scenes were filmed inside a factory pig unit in Northern Ireland in 2025. One of four farms documented during an investigation into animal health standards in parts of the UK pig sector, published today by news agency SWNS and campaign group Animal Justice Project.

There’s further shocking footage: dead and dying pigs strewn around, rotting carcasses left unattended and flies in abundance. Injured and sick animals left amongst the healthy, faeces and blood and other muck smeared on walls and floors and equipment, and decaying buildings with collapsing ceilings and dust and cobwebs and rubbish everywhere.

The campaigners say that if you've ever visited an intensive pig farm "the sights and sounds (and stink) never leave you." According to them, "cruelty and suffering, and overcrowded, grubby conditions" are common in this type of pig production. They also claim that the scenes uncovered in these four units are amongst the worst captured on film in the UK.

According to the critics, this is "the real face of cheap pork." They describe the findings as "the images the factory pig industry doesn’t want you to see.... they know that pictures of pigs in pain and distress and covered in blood don’t sit well with consumers. They also know that conditions such as these provide an ideal breeding ground for disease."

Indeed, each of the pig units documented in the investigation had appeared in a government database of livestock farms and meat products that had been found to be contaminated with salmonella, the food poisoning illness that can prove harmful to humans - and, in some cases, proves fatal.

Salmonella is found in the guts of livestock and poultry, and once it takes hold on farms, can spread rapidly through the supply chain - during animal transportation, at abattoirs and processing plants, for example - and go on to infect meat that’s then sold to consumers.

The government records, published on the website of the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) following a freedom of information request, list sausages and other pork items amongst the contaminated products. The detections were made during tests carried out between 2021 and 2024.

Products produced for Asda, Aldi, M&S and Booker (part of the Tesco group) were all found to contain salmonella, the AFBI records show. Meat or pork carcasses processed by the manufacturers Karro Foods, Finnebrogue and Cranswick also tested positive.

Much of the salmonella detailed in the government data is known as monophasic salmonella typhimurium (mST) which the government says has increased in pigs and people in recent decades. They have reported that whilst many commercial-scale pig farms have salmonella, some types, like mST, are more hazardous than others.

Stringent hygiene standards on farms are important for preventing and controlling salmonella (and other diseases), but the investigation suggests not all pig farms are following the rules. As well as the images, an inspection report contained in the AFBI records for one of the farms filmed noted that "in view of the [...] high prevalence of disease on the premises, there may be concerns regarding hygiene, stocking density and infection management, even back to farrowing [birthing] conditions."

Many of the salmonella samples were found to be resistant to multiple antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance concerns health chiefs because in serious cases of human disease that require drug treatment, medicine options may become limited.

Antibiotics are used in livestock production to treat and prevent illnesses, particularly on factory farms where overcrowded conditions can allow bacteria to flourish. These farms can act as incubators for drug resistant diseases in humans. Specifically, the bacteria that cause food-borne diseases, including salmonella, campylobacter and e.coli, can become immune to these substances.

The UK pig industry says it has significantly reduced its overall antibiotic use in the past decade, particularly usage of drugs regarded as being the most critical to human healthcare. Centralised data collection has also been put in place, enabling the government and veterinary experts to monitor trends. But disease outbreaks, a lack of access to vaccines, and the withdrawal of other treatments all contributed to a rise in use recorded in 2023, the most recent year for which records are available.

At the farms recently investigated, six different classes of antibiotics appear to have been in use, including some critically important to human medicine. Although many would have been administered to individual animals by injection, there is evidence that some drugs were mixed into pig feed or drinking water. This enables groups of animals, or even entire herds, to be treated in one go. This sparks particular alarm amongst experts as there’s a risk of healthy animals being dosed unnecessarily, further fuelling the spread of drug-resistance.

Responding to the findings, Dr Steven McCulloch, a European veterinary specialist in animal welfare science, ethics and law at Winchester University, said: ”If the public is interested in the dystopian reality of modern intensive pig production, watch this footage. Caged breeding sows, mutilated piglets, suffering and death. Cruelty to pigs in squalid and filthy conditions. And a pharmacy of antibiotics to mitigate disease. We must ask why governments, the veterinary profession and society prioritise cheap pork and bacon over life saving antibiotics?”

Dr Ron Daniels, founder and chief medical officer at the UK Sepsis Trust said: “Whilst the UK has banned antibiotics for growth promotion, entire herds can still be treated when just one animal is sick. The result? Multi-drug resistant bacteria on our plates. We urgently need legislation – and a fundamental rethink of our consumption – to protect our future.”

None of the government agencies, supermarkets or food companies contacted about the findings disputed that AFBI had detected salmonella in meat products and farms.

A spokesperson from the Food Industry Initiative on Antibiotics (FIIA), which represents Asda, Aldi, Cranswick, Karro, Finnebrogue and Tesco, said however: “This is a very small dataset showing only the positive results from tens of thousands of tests taking place on products and animals every year, and on its own, is very hard to interpret. What we can see is around half the samples show some resistance to one or more antibiotics, which is entirely in-keeping with what we’re seeing across animal and human medicine as our antibiotics come under increasing threat from the complex challenge of resistance.

They added: “Over the past 10 years, UK farming has established a world-leading reputation for scrutiny and care in using antibiotics responsibly on farms. So much so, a 60% reduction in use [has been recorded] to among the lowest levels globally. The pig sector has reduced use even further. "

FIIA said that "data such as this from AFBI feeds into an annual government report which shows resistance levels in the farm and food setting are also falling in response to all this .“

M&S didn't address the AFBI contamination findings in its response.

In a statement AFBI said: "Within Northern Ireland, AFBI is designated as an official animal health laboratory providing a range of accredited testing services to meet statutory and contractual requirements."

Philip Kennedy from the Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland, said: “The risk to public health from salmonella, e.coli and campylobacter in raw meats is considered low when proper food handling and cooking practices are followed." He added: "By law, retailers and manufacturers in the UK must regularly sample and test their products to ensure food safety. If a food safety concern is raised, the FSA acts immediately."

In relation to the animal health and hygiene findings on pig farms, Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs said it "takes all reports and concerns relating to animal health and welfare extremely seriously. Any allegations received are fully investigated and appropriate action taken as necessary."

Back on the farms, no amount of drugs will help some animals. At one, footage shows an adult pig lying motionless on the floor, presumably dead. But the animal unexpectedly twitches. There’s evidence of breathing. The pig moves its head. Clearly still alive. How long the animal has been like this is impossible to say.

This story was updated to include the full responses of government regulators and companies named.