A trip to the slaughterhouse

“But it tastes so good” is a phrase I’ve heard regularly for the past five years, after I cave in the face of new acquaintances’ aggressive interrogation and confirm that I am indeed a vegetarian. I picked up the label after I had concerns that if I couldn’t kill an animal myself, why should I ask others to do it for me? But I’ve recently abandoned the title as it seemed easier to just eat meat while staying with my family over the Christmas break. Peer pressure is a powerful motivator.

Now that I’m a participant in the meat production process, I feel I owe it to the animals I’m eating to know what happens to them, and so I secured a free tour of Greenlea Premier Meats in Hamilton, a boutique processing plant that handles over a thousand cows a day.

At first, my pop-culture frame of reference was the yuppie couple on Portlandia who travel to the farm to meet the chicken they’re about to devour, but in the event, I took a journey more akin to that of Jimmy, the naïve schoolboy from Troy McClure’s infomercial “Meat and You”. But at this crossroads in my relationship with meat, I was curious to see what ‘Bovine University’ looked like in present-day New Zealand.

My Troy McClure for the day is Julie McDade, Greenlea’s business development manager. After a chat about the history of the place, the industry, and what I can expect to see, we suit up into hygienic garb. Julie wears white overalls, and I put on a the disposable blue ones they reserve for guests, which makes me look and feel like a big crinkly blueberry. Julie assures me that it’s not an exercise in humiliation, and I try to nonchalantly put my hands in my pockets, but there aren’t any, so I look like I’m rubbing the plastic sensually against my thighs. Luckily, she doesn’t notice my weak attempt at a save.

I hoist a beard protector over my three-day stubble and waddle behind her. Finally, I’m about to experience for myself a place that I’ve only ever seen depicted in positive marketing, or negative animal rights groups’ propaganda from an earlier decade.

I’m not the first visitor to the plant; countless others before me, from all over the world, have donned this binbag to make sure the plant is both up to scratch under their countries’ laws and their companies’ standards. Ninety per cent of the meat produced at Greenlea, and its sister plant in Morrinsville, is exported to more than 40 countries, where it can then be sold to some of the industry’s main players, like fast food restaurants and supermarkets.

Julie and I travel up to the second storey of the complex to our first stop, the “slaughter floor”. We hose down our gumboots and wash our hands next to a man who is carefully and silently cleaning a medium-sized knife. Every precaution is taken to make sure we don’t bring anything that could contaminate the meat in with us.

My first sight upon opening the double doors to the slaughter floor is of three freshly-killed cows hanging upside down, their tongues dangling out of their mouths, their throats cut. We pass these new acquaintances and a worker passing offal into a tube-like container (who pauses to give me a warm smile) to get to a spot next to a row of carcasses that had been broken down to bones and meat. From this vantage point, I can see the processing line from start to finish.

It takes you a minute to adjust to the environment, partly because I’m not used to seeing dead cows, and partly because of the visceral impact of the place. Outside these walls, you’d have no idea of what is going on. Even the washroom is quiet and peaceful; in here, it’s busy and warm, and the different tools at work create an overwhelming mechanical cacophony.

But after a few moments, you see the place for what it is: a high-tech facility, with skilled workers doing a precise job, breaking down an animal to fulfill its different functions in the after-life.

On the far end of the room, a freshly-killed cow is lying on its side on a structure that’s a cross between a futuristic trough and an operating table, before it travels down the winding factory line to be disassembled.

It seems like they don’t even need to touch the hide as it freely peels off it byself to reveal the muscle and bone

First, two cheery men, standing on platforms that move up and down either side of the carcass, skilfully remove the hide so that it peels outwards. It seems effortless, just a few swipes here and there – by the mid-way point, it seems like they don’t even need to touch the hide as it freely peels off it byself to reveal the muscle and bone. It then slips through a roller and into an unseen slot, where it will be collected and sold for leather.

“The skin seems to just slide off,” I mention conversationally to Julie.

“Hide,” she corrects me. “If you think about it, it’s not really attached to anything.”

I do think about it, and immediately wish I hadn’t.

“Every part is used,” Julie reassures me as I watch a man deal with a recently liberated head. Not only does it make business sense, I think it’s the most respectful way you can treat an animal you’ve killed to eat. The whole cow goes in; the whole cow more or less comes out.

One worker is tasked with shifting through offal in a metal tub, examining it for irregularities. The carcass then reaches a man with a giant saw, who cuts its now naked, organ-less and headless remains into two more workable halves with the greatest ease. Here, another worker examines both sides for contamination or irregularities. The two pieces of meat then wait in line for the “hot boning room”, where it’s broken down for packaging. The whole process, from warm, breathing animal to a high-quality slab, takes about 90 minutes.

The choice cuts from the cow are then vacuum sealed in separate bags while the remaining parts go into McDonald’s-specified blue bags, as part of their “blending meat”. This is when a cow that’s low in fat, like these retired dairy cows, are mixed with beef that has a higher fat content, a combination that keeps the taste while reducing cost.

Julie and I go downstairs, where the prime beef is stored, before we visit the main packaging room. The meat is sorted almost automatically on a high-tech conveyer belt. A worker embraces Julie and asks what my role here is today. “Oh yes, things have definitely changed in the last 20 years!” she says enthusiastically. I look around the room, buzzing with people hunched over computer screens, and wonder how much more change is possible.

Finally, the boxes of meat travel to a giant garage, where two workers are listening to the radio – an unfamiliar sound after room after room of machinery. They inspect each box and slap halal and government-officiated stickers on them. To the sound of MGMT’s ‘Electric Feel’, the conveyer belt then takes the boxes away to be stored in freezers, where they wait to be sent to the far reaches of the globe.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, I end my tour at the stockyards, where the cattle spend the last moments of their lives as they await processing. The cows move quickly and calmly through pens where they’re washed with a gentle spray of water, before ascending a curved covered ramp that leads to the top floor. There’s no distress, no noise; it’s a relaxing and peaceful atmosphere.

Once they arrive at the top floor, they enter a room where they’re given an electric shock to the brain that knocks them unconscious. This means that, when their throat is cut in accordance with the halal practice stipulated by Islamic law, they don’t feel pain. It’s the most humane and respectful end anyone could hope for.

I leave the plant and wait for my ride on the side of the street, opposite The Mad Butcher. As I stare at the overly-ecstatic face of Sir Peter Leitch, a steady stream of trucks carrying cows roll past. I wonder how many processing plants in New Zealand are like this one, where I feel they’ve perfected the contentious balance between profit and animal welfare.

This plant might be an exception – chickens and pigs are routinely kept in awful conditions – and there are undoubtedly still problems in the industry that need to be addressed. But for me, the solution is to be more conscious of them, not to turn a blind eye. If I want to keep eating meat, it’s my responsibility to support suppliers and producers that tread the fine line between business and morality.

This content is brought to you with funding assistance from New Zealand On Air.