The food safety board NVWA noted 5,700 infringements of the law at Dutch slaughterhouses in the first six months of last year, of which 1,400 involved animal welfare issues.

In a total of 401 cases, slaughterhouse owners were given a fine or formal warning, the inspectors said in a half-yearly update. Most of the problems related to hygiene.

The Netherlands has 39 large abbatoirs which have inspectors on permanent standby. Sixteen of them are for poultry, the rest deal with pigs, cattle and goats.

Chief inspector Gerard Bakker said that animal welfare issues must be given a higher priority by companies. “The figures show that slaughterhouses are not taking their responsibilities in terms of animal welfare and food safety seriously,” he said. “Things are going wrong too often and must improve.”

Inspectors carried out some 50,000 checks in the first six months of last year, up some 8,000 on 2021.

Animal welfare campaign group Wakker Dier called for an increase in fines. “If you continue to make mistakes, you should be hit hard financially,” spokesman Collin Molenaar said. “The size of the fines must be adapted to reflect the suffering that animals face.”