Cowra Meat Processors
The 30th slaughterhouse to be investigated and exposed as part of Farm Transparency Project's "Shut Down Slaughterhouses" campaign.
Cowra Meat Processors is a large multi-species slaughterhouse in central west NSW with three separate kill rooms, slaughtering pigs, cows, sheep and goats.
As with all major pig slaughterhouses in Australia, pigs at Cowra are killed in a carbon dioxide gas chamber, a system now notorious for its cruelty. A painful electric stunner is used to immobilise sheep and goats at the end of a 'V restraint' conveyor, while cows, steers, heifers and a small number of calves are shot with either a pneumatic bolt stunner or a handheld bolt gun in a 'knockbox'. Larger pigs who won't fit in the gas chamber, including injured or unproductive breeding sows, are taken to the cattle knockbox.
Hidden cameras installed by FTP in November 2024 reveal the aggressive use of electric prodders to move sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and young piglets; workers throwing, kicking, and smacking animals with metal tools; extremely poor and ineffective use of 'stunning' devices causing prolonged agony; animals being killed while conscious, some having escaped the restraint; and a conscious pig drowning in a scalding tank.
Cowra Meat Processors employs around 200 people and is also known by its retail business, Breakout River Meats. The slaughterhouse had gone into liquidation in August 2006, and was brought back to operation with Breakout River as a major partner in March 2007. Both businesses are owned by Christopher Brian Cummins (Chris Cummins), a climate change denier and conspiracy theorist, who is on record claiming that pigs in his gas chamber feel "absolutely nothing".
In 2012, the facility installed a $15,000 surveillance camera system. The cameras cover the building exteriors, the 'race' areas leading to the kill rooms, and the cattle tipout area, but are otherwise absent from the slaughtering areas and gas chamber.
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30th slaughterhouse exposed for cruelty in two years
Monday 26 May 2025
Farm Transparency Project has published hidden camera footage captured late last year at the Cowra slaughterhouse in NSW The footage reveals workers throwing, kicking, smacking and aggressively electrocuting animals to move them to the kill floor, where many are then ineffectively 'stunned' and killed while conscious This is the 30th slaughterhouse investigated and exposed by the group across NSW, VIC, QLD, TAS and SA in the last two years, completing a pledge made in mid 2023 Farm Transparency Project (FTP) has completed its pledge to investigate and expose 30 slaughterhouses across Australia over two years, with Cowra Meat Processors in central... Read more >
ABN Lookup
ABN | 33 123 108 994 (open lookup) |
Entity name | COWRA MEAT PROCESSORS PTY LIMITED |
ABN status | Active from 01 January 2007 |
Entity type | Australian Private Company |
Goods & Services Tax (GST) | Registered from 01 January 2007 |
Main business location | NSW 2794 from 01 January 2007 |
ABN last updated | 01 January 2007 |
Extracted from ABR | 05 June 2025 |