“The taste for simple things.
The slogan of the leader of the industrial charcuterie Herta resonates harshly at the sight of the last video of L214 published Wednesday evening.
In this five-minute sequence, the association for the defense of animal welfare shows the mistreatment of pigs in a farm in the Aube region supplying the leader of the Herta charcuterie.
According to L214, the operation belongs to the company Promontval.
This alone has nearly 20,000 pigs (including nearly 1,500 sows - the national average is 250 - and their progeny) at two sites.
It recently obtained permission to expand.
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The images visible below (
Editor's note
, beware, these are likely to shock) are shot in August and September 2021 according to the association.
They reveal in particular a man carrying a series of dry blows on the back of a sow using a plastic instrument.
Earlier, another slams the heads of two piglets to the ground to kill them, a practice tolerated if the animals are dying.
The same man then throws live piglets unceremoniously into a plastic container to practice with his colleague interventions often observed in breeding: section of the tail to prevent it from being eaten by fellow creatures, trimming of the teeth to limit inflicted injuries. to other piglets and to the udders of sows.
Herta's “Preference Track”
According to L214, Promontval is involved in Herta's “Préférence branch”.
In this sector, "our breeders undertake to respect a guide of good practices", underlines on its site the leading brand of charcuterie in France.
In a statement released shortly before the video was made public, the company said it had been informed "of the imminent publication of a video against a pig farm."
It indicates that it “will analyze this video, as soon as it has access to the images, and will launch an audit”.
"If breaches of the rules were indeed to be noted in this breeding, Herta will know how to draw all the consequences", adds the group, while deploring "the relentlessness of L214 against the breeding".
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The association announces that it is filing a complaint for "mistreatment of animals and consumer deception with the prosecutor of Troyes".
Requested, the Ministry of Agriculture and the prosecutor's office in Troyes had not followed up on Wednesday evening.
The Aube prefecture did not wish to communicate.
Herta pinned three times in one year
L214 has already targeted a Herta de l'Allier “Preference sector” breeding in two videos published at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. The industrialist had suspended his supplies “as a precaution” after the first video.
The group had taken them back after an internal audit and after the local health authorities had concluded that the farm was "in good condition and that there was no major non-conformity".
However, the authorities had asked for "corrective measures" in terms of watering, reduction of the density or replacement of the slatted floors.
The press release below is from a year ago, almost to the day.
Herta unreservedly condemns the mistreatment of animals.
Our teams are fully mobilized.
pic.twitter.com/k0CvnupFak
- HERTA (@Herta_France) December 4, 2020
The breeder must appear on January 26 before the criminal court of Moulins for mistreatment of animals, "storage of dead animals for more than 24 hours in an unrefrigerated depot", and deprivation of food, in particular.
He risks a fine and a ban.