Ducks destined for Tesco subject to 'extreme abuse'

Secret camera footage shows ducks being swung by their necks, slammed into drawers and hurled to the ground at a farm supplying the UK’s largest duck meat producer, which sells to the UK’s biggest supermarkets.

- JANE DALTON

The video was shot when birds destined for Gressingham Duck, which supplies Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Co-op and, until recently, Waitrose, were being caught at a farm endorsed by farming standards project Red Tractor.

Animal rights activists said the “shocking and harrowing” footage revealed the brutal and inhumane treatment of nearly 10,000 intensively farmed ducks that were just 44 days old.

After The Independent showed the clips to Gressingham Foods and supermarkets, the duck giant suspended the farm, and Waitrose cut ties with it. The RSPCA responded by banning the workers involved from catching turkeys and chickens on farms that are certified under its RSPCA Assured scheme.

Suffolk-based Gressingham, which produces most of the nine million UK ducks slaughtered every year through its contractor farms, says that, as well as supermarkets, it supplies specialist butchers and top restaurants nationwide.

Animal rights organisation Animal Justice Project (AJP), which filmed undercover in June and August at Byram Park Farm in North Yorkshire, said the footage showed “extreme abuse inflicted upon ducks”.