logo
Pork producer faces investor showdown after Mail on Sunday exposed workers had been killing piglets by smashing them against floors and walls

Pork producer faces investor showdown after Mail on Sunday exposed workers had been killing piglets by smashing them against floors and walls

Daily Mail​18-05-2025
A pork producer in an animal welfare scandal exposed by The Mail on Sunday faces difficult questions from investors when it reveals financial results this week.
Cranswick, which supplies major UK supermarkets, was thrown into crisis last Sunday after we revealed that workers at its Northmoor farm in Lincolnshire had been killing piglets by smashing them against floors and walls.
Footage showed pigs being beaten and kicked, plus botched killings.
The scandal is likely to dominate exchanges between Cranswick bosses and shareholders on Tuesday when it reports results for the year to March.
The firm's largest backers include investment giants such as JP Morgan and Vanguard as well as UK mutual fund Royal London.
Cranswick, which is traded on the London stock market, has seen about £71 million wiped off its value after the scandal erupted.
Financial analysts are predicting it will report profits of £192 million for the year to March, up from £176 million the previous year.
But Cranswick is facing legal action after Animal Justice Project, which is behind the investigation into Northmoor, filed a formal complaint with Trading Standards.
Emma Milligan of Lincolnshire Trading Standards said: 'We work with partners, including police, to take action to protect livestock.'
The company has suspended staff at Northmoor farm and has ordered an urgent investigation.
The farm is a small part of Cranswick's operation but the revelations could cause tensions with some of its major customers.
Sainsbury's, Tesco and Morrisons suspended deliveries from Northmoor farm following The Mail on Sunday's report.
In March, Cranswick signed a ten-year contract with Sainsbury's for all of the supermarket's pork, sausages, bacon and gammon to be purchased through the company.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

F1 chief wants to see record-breaking Silverstone stay on calendar for good
F1 chief wants to see record-breaking Silverstone stay on calendar for good

The Guardian

timean hour ago

  • The Guardian

F1 chief wants to see record-breaking Silverstone stay on calendar for good

The Formula One chief executive, Stefano Domenicali, has said he would like the British Grand Prix at Silverstone to remain on the F1 calendar for ever, with the event set to host what is expected to be the largest meeting in the sport's history, reaching half a million people over four days this weekend. The British GP, which has been on the calendar since F1 began in 1950, is expected to sell out with record numbers and Domenicali acknowledged it was part of a large and thriving F1 business in Britain, which he hopes can be improved by working closer with the UK government when he meets the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and other government officials at Downing Street on Wednesday afternoon. Last year Silverstone extended its contract with F1 to host the race until 2034, one of many long-term deals the sport has concluded recently, including Austria extending to 2041 last week, but Domenicali said the British GP was such a unique event for the sport in size and interest it could negotiate a deal of even greater longevity. 'Silverstone has the right characteristics to stay for ever in the calendar,' he said. 'There's no other places where you can develop such a huge event in the UK. I don't see any other places, to be honest. 'In the past the relationship with the Silverstone promoters has been intense and they know that. Our approach is to find the best situation. I don't see Silverstone not being able, if they want, to do what others have already done. We've done already last year a big step, never done before.' The meeting on Wednesday, to celebrate F1's 75th anniversary, will include senior figures from F1, including drivers and team principals as well as apprentices and members of the all-female F1 Academy. It is hoped to be part of a developing relationship with the government to work better with the sport, notably in areas including infrastructure and over the effects of Brexit on F1, with seven of the 10 teams based in the UK. F1 is now an increasingly important industrial player in the UK. It is worth £12bn to the economy annually and employs 6,000 people directly, with a further 41,000 in the 4,500 associated supply chain companies. 'I will highlight to the prime minister the technology and the centres of excellence that are in the UK,' Domenicali said. 'Of the fact that with Brexit there are complications for movements, there are complications for the visas. I'm saying that because I think that it's relevant to keep the possibility for people to be attracted to work here. Because if you lose that link, then immediately the centre could be moving other places.' Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Complications include the carnet system now required for moving equipment into Europe, which has knock-on effects in costs, time and notably sustainability. Visa issues for entry to the UK also still exist for those coming to work here in F1 and Domenicali hoped what is a continuing dialogue would prove fruitful. 'We have already formally presented in order to see if in the agenda of the government there will be a sort of attention to this, it's our duty to present respectfully in the right way to them,' he said. 'Of course, there is the hope for the government to understand if there is a way to have some exceptions or a way to work around the needs that we have. We will not decide the priority on which your government will dictate the agenda for the next step but we're going to do it in the right way.'

The royal gravy train must be halted
The royal gravy train must be halted

Times

time2 hours ago

  • Times

The royal gravy train must be halted

The news that the royal train is to ­be ­retired to a museum by 2027 was the public ­relations equivalent of a tethered goat: an enticing morsel designed to distract attention from less palatable aspects of the royal finances. Faced with the royal family's booming income at a time of hardship for many Britons, officials who guard the royal image clearly decided something had to be offered up. Consigning the train's nine carriages to history was an obvious choice, a painless sacrifice. Costing some £1 million to maintain annually, it was rarely used, enjoying just two outings last year, costing £78,000. It will come as news to most taxpayers that such an extraordinary vehicle still exists, and that they have been shelling out seven figures for it to mainly languish in the sidings. But the royal financials released this week are concerning for the information they do not contain. • King Charles net worth — Sunday Times Rich List 2025 Two sets of figures were released, one relating to the monarchy as a whole, and another to the ­income of the Prince of Wales from the Duchy of Cornwall. In contrast to the rest of government, where balancing books is a neuralgic issue, the royal finances are in rude health. Since 2011, when David Cameron concocted a ludicrously generous funding formula for the sovereign grant, the annual payment to the monarchy, its value has soared. From £31 million in 2013 it will be £132 million in each of the next two years. Even when money for the £369 million refurbishment of Buckingham Palace is subtracted there will still be tens of millions left to fund royal operations. The sovereign grant formula is bizarre. Some 260 years ago, George III surrendered the earnings from the crown's hereditary lands in return for a stipend. Those assets became the Crown ­Estate which, despite its name, has nothing to do with the monarchy. Under the Cameron arrangement the grant is calculated at 10 per cent of Crown Estate profits, with a 2 per cent temporary uplift for the palace works. Licence earnings for offshore wind farms on the estate-owned seabed have seen profits rocket to over £1 billion. This is a temporary boost for the estate but not for the royals. The 2011 agreement includes a 'gold ratchet' that means the grant can stay the same or go up, but not fall. Together with his £27 million income from the Duchy of Lancaster the King is well provided for. Even though the palace knows the Crown Estate is a national, not a royal, asset it ­persists with the fiction that it is. Supposedly, its surrender in the 18th century is still providing a net gain for the public. A spokesman said this week: 'The sum surrendered by the King is far greater than the sum returned as the sovereign grant, and thus there is no additional burden on taxpayers.' To this fantasy is added the secrecy of Prince William over the tax he pays on income from the Duchy of Cornwall. Once public, the amount is now simply described as the 'highest rate'. The duchy is a 'private estate with a commercial imperative'. That means a company, surely? Yet it pays no corporation tax or CGT. It also makes charities, schools and the NHS pay for using premises. William's desire to be a champion for the underprivileged is undermined by this profiteering. Just like the Crown Estate, the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are national assets, not 'private' ones. It is time for the government to consolidate all three into a National Estate and pay working royals simple stipends while maintaining royal infrastructure. The gravy train must end.

Starmer wins vote on UK welfare reform but suffers damaging rebellion
Starmer wins vote on UK welfare reform but suffers damaging rebellion

Reuters

time2 hours ago

  • Reuters

Starmer wins vote on UK welfare reform but suffers damaging rebellion

LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer won a vote on his welfare plans on Tuesday at significant political cost as he suffered the biggest parliamentary rebellion of his premiership and was forced to back down on key parts of the package. After his lawmakers pushed him into a series of embarrassing U-turns to sharply scale back plans to cut benefits, lawmakers in the House of Commons gave their initial approval to a package of measures Starmer says are vital to securing the future of the welfare system. But the scale of the rebellion - with 49 Labour lawmakers voting against the reforms - underlined the prime minister's waning authority. A year after winning one of the largest parliamentary majorities in British history, Starmer has seen his personal approval ratings collapse and been forced into several policy reversals by his increasingly rebellious lawmakers. "It's been a bumpy time tonight," work and pensions minister Liz Kendall told reporters after a session of parliament when lawmakers took turns to mostly criticise the planned changes. "There are definitely lessons to learn from this process." Starmer came into office last year promising his big parliamentary majority would bring an end to the political chaos that defined much of the Conservative Party's 14 years in power. But the revolt over the welfare bill underlines the difficulty he has pushing through unpopular changes. In the run-up to the vote, ministers and party enforcers known as "whips" had been locked in frantic last-ditch lobbying of undecided members of parliament to try to win their backing. In a further concession to rebels about two hours before the vote, the government said it would not finalise changes in eligibility for a key benefit payment until a review into the welfare system had been completed. Paula Barker, a Labour member of parliament, called the attempt to pass the plans "the most unedifying spectacle that I have ever seen". In the end, the government suffered by far the biggest rebellion of Starmer's premiership, eclipsing the 16 members of parliament who opposed an infrastructure bill earlier this month. Mel Stride, the opposition Conservative Party finance policy chief, described Starmer's team as "a government that's lost control", only able to pass the legislation by having "ripped the heart of it out". Labour lawmaker Henry Tufnell said by agreeing to the concessions Starmer had shown "he's willing to take on board these criticisms that people have raised." Almost 90 disability and human rights groups before the vote urged lawmakers to vote down the legislation. The proposed reforms are designed to reduce the cost of Britain's growing welfare bill, which the government has described as economically indefensible and morally wrong. Annual spending on incapacity and disability benefits already exceeds the country's defence budget and is set to top 100 billion pounds ($137 billion) by 2030, according to official forecasts, up from 65 billion pounds now. More than half of the rise in working-age disability claims since the COVID-19 pandemic relates to mental health conditions, opens new tab, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank. The government had initially hoped to save 5 billion pounds ($6.9 billion) a year by 2030 by tightening rules for people to receive disability and sickness benefits. But after the government conceded to pressure from its lawmakers, it said the new rules would now apply only to future applicants, not to the millions of existing claimants as had been proposed. Analysts estimated the savings would likely be closer to 2 billion pounds. It was not clear how the additional last-minute change would impact the hoped-for savings in the welfare reform package. Opposition politicians said the government would now have to raise taxes or cut government spending elsewhere to balance the public finances in the annual budget later this year. The government has said there would be no permanent increase in borrowing, but has declined to comment on possible tax rises. While Starmer is under no immediate threat, and the next election is not expected until 2029, his party now trails behind Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK in opinion polls. John Curtice, Britain's most respected pollster, said this week that Starmer was the most unpopular elected prime minister in modern British history, and that voters still did not know what he stood for a year after he was elected.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store