Hidden behind concrete walls and glossy marketing, Cranswick plc farms imprison over 900,000 pigs and piglets. It is Red Tractor assured and supplies major supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons, with products like bacon and sausages. It's hailed as an "industry leader", yet engages in the same routine practices that are widespread across the pig industry. Its farms reflect a stark contrast to the propaganda you’ll see in its advertising, with pigs trapped in barren pens, in hot and humid sheds, splattered with faeces, and left to suffer excruciating health conditions.
In May 2025, we exposed Northmoor Farm, revealing botched killings, illegalities and imprisoned mothers. But the suffering didn’t end there. Once piglets reached just three months old, they were sent 14 miles away to another Cranswick site – Somerby Top fattening farm, Lincolnshire. Over 10 months, we documented systemic failures and routine abuses. As featured in the Mail on Sunday, our footage exposes a system that fails animals at every stage.
Inside Somerby Top, pigs face a grim reality. Desolate concrete pens imprison young pigs in groups of 25 – 1,000 per shed. With nothing more than a plastic pipe or wooden block for so-called enrichment, the barren pens leave these intelligent, inquisitive animals bored and anxious. Naturally, pigs would spend their days exploring, rooting in soil, foraging for food, and building complex relationships with one another. But when confined to the barren, crowded pens of a fattening farm, their entire system becomes frustrated, and their mental and physical health begins to deteriorate. In these unnatural conditions, where enrichment is abysmal, stimulation is minimal, and personal space is non-existent, these young pigs are pushed to psychological breaking points – and the frustration festers. The overwhelming life in concrete cells inevitably led pigs to turn on each other out of sheer desperation.
Even though their tails had been cut off without pain relief when they were just days old – a standard but excruciating practice – tail biting remained widespread. We filmed pigs with rotting, bitten ears; some had half of their ears missing completely. These injuries were not rare. They were everywhere. Sick and injured pigs were a common sight: ruptured hernias, swollen joints, severe lameness, bites, scratches, coughing and wheezing, and open wounds. As workers carried out ‘welfare checks’, they barely even glanced at the pigs, completing their box-ticking exercise in as little as 90 seconds per shed – 90 seconds to check the well-being of 1,000 animals.
Pigs suffering with hernias – also known as ruptures – were abundant inside this Cranswick farm. The cause of conditions is usually either genetic or due to poor handling when the piglets are very young. Scrotal hernias are generally hereditary, meaning that the ‘breeding lines’ chosen by Cranswick – often selecting pigs with fast growth – will produce this painful health condition. More commonly, we recorded ruptures in the abdomen, which hung down below the pigs’ stomachs. A Northmoor Farm worker explained, “If you grab the piglet and pull it too much…they rupture.” Despite this knowledge, workers at Northmoor regularly hung piglets by their back legs, holding several per hand, and the implications were clear to see at Somerby Top.
“These pigs are suffering from conditions like lameness and large hernias that, in any other setting, would prompt immediate treatment. Lame animals should be given pain relief, usually antibiotics, and soft bedding. Hernias can be surgically corrected, though never are in pig farming, or may be managed better with proper care and housing. Sadly, in intensive farming, animals aren’t treated as individuals. Even basic care is often withheld because it’s not considered financially viable. This footage shows not just neglect—but a system that allows suffering on an industrial scale.” – Dr Alice Brough BVM&S MRCVS, pig veterinarian
Throughout the 10 months we investigated the farm, many pigs died or were killed as a direct result of hernias being left untreated. Several individuals were eaten alive as they were trapped with nowhere to escape inside the concrete cells. Of all the heartbreaking stories we encountered, none struck us more deeply than Percy’s. A large hernia swung from his abdomen, and he was in urgent need of veterinary care. Instead, he was left in a pen with over 20 other pigs who nuzzled and bit his hernia. For hours and hours, he tried to escape being cannibalised, but eventually, his intestines burst through the rupture, and he continuously bled out. He vomited and became increasingly distressed, showing clear signs of extreme pain. He cried out over and over again and convulsed on the ground, but the Cranswick workers did not intervene. Percy died – slowly, painfully – inside a Red Tractor-approved farm.
During our surveillance, Somerby Top was audited by Red Tractor. We returned just two weeks later and were met with the same squalid conditions. Nothing had changed, and the farm remained approved by the assurance scheme.
Several pigs were dragged screaming to the ‘kill container’; workers booted severely lame individuals to push them into the room. They were shot and left flailing on the floor, bleeding out, before the door was closed on them. No checks were made to see if they were effectively killed or simply left to bleed out slowly, and painfully.
For those who survived the hellish 10 weeks inside this Cranswick fattening farm, the slaughterhouse awaited. The extensive neglect we filmed turned to violence and aggression during loading for transport. Workers physically and verbally abused the pigs, shouting obscenities and beating the terrified animals. Even lame pigs and those with ruptured hernias were loaded for slaughter, breaching UK Government legislation and guidelines. In animal agriculture, profit is the bottom line, even if you have to break the law.
The pigs from Somerby Top are sent to two of Cranswick’s slaughterhouses – Norfolk and Preston (Hull) – where they will be gassed to death. The Preston site is the largest ‘pork processor’ in the UK and according to the company, is “affectionately known as the heart of Cranswick”. If mass killing lies at the heart of a business, then it has no place in a compassionate future.
Give Challenge 22 a try! With free online guidance, mentors and delicious plant-based recipes, choose vegan for the animals and join the fastest-growing social justice movement in history!
If you are vegan and want to help further, you can order our Imprisoned pig leaflets and Animal Farming factsheets, perfect for educating the public on high streets and posting through letterboxes!
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