Johannesburg - Tiger Brands, South Africa’s biggest food company, has had criminal charges laid against it by an animal-rights group over a pig slaughter method that involves the animals being gassed to death in cages after being lowered into a pit.
The National Council of SPCAs said it laid the charges because its concerns had not been addressed.
Tiger said it will comment later in a statement.
The system involves the suffocation of the pigs with carbon dioxide before they are slaughtered, the NSPCA said in an e- mailed statement on Tuesday.
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“Until they lose consciousness the pigs display violent reactions including panic-like systems such as kicking, gasping and frantic efforts to escape by climbing on top of one another,” it said, including video footage of the method in a link in its statement.
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