Avara Foods

In 2019, an investigation revealed that sick and injured birds, some with festering wounds, were left to die in overcrowded Avara sheds.¹

Similarly, a 2021 investigation found that Avara keeps 30,000 birds per shed, which means the animals must scramble over one another just to try and find space. It found lame birds and others dying of starvation and dehydration, while dead birds were simply trodden into the ground.²

Avara’s chickens are “Frankenchickens”³ – a breed that has been genetically manipulated to grow so fast that their legs, hearts, and respiratory systems cannot cope.⁴

But, we have to hand it to them, Avara does have a sense of humour. When investigators filmed the plight of severely suffering and deformed birds, Avara had the audacity to blame the investigators for disturbing the birds while they slept! You couldn’t make it up.⁵

The most recent audit of Avara’s Herefordshire slaughterhouse (September 2025)⁶ revealed three “major” breaches of animal protection laws, including causing severe avoidable pain, suffering, or distress to animals.

Records show that Avara’s farms account for much of Herefordshire’s ammonia emissions, which can mix with other pollutants to create particles linked to increased death rates, respiratory problems, and cardiovascular diseases in people who live in the area.⁷

Analysis has also revealed that one Avara “megafarm” is now among the most polluting poultry units in the country.⁸ Somebody get them a trophy.

Avara’s co-owner Cargill openly lobbied the EU parliament in 2020 to soften a bill aimed at reducing deforestation,⁹ which is just a little strange for a company that claims not to have anything to do with deforestation.¹⁰

And here’s something curious… Avara has been reported to have a paid consultant that sits on the government’s nutrition advisory board.¹¹

In 2023, Avara was fined £200,000 for illegally discharging liquid effluent into sewers on 30 separate occasions.¹²

The company claims to have a 100% deforestation-free soy supply chain¹³ and yet the Bureau of Investigative Journalism tracked soy from deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado directly to Avara’s chicken on UK supermarket shelves.¹⁴ Who to believe?

More than 4,500 people have joined a legal action to sue Avara for polluting – and almost destroying – the once beautiful River Wye as well as the Lugg and Usk.¹⁵ This comes as no surprise as Cargill (which co-owns Avara) has already been sued in the US for polluting the Illinois River.¹⁶ After fighting the suit for decades, they have agreed to pay a pathetic $6.5 million towards the clean-up.¹⁶⁷

At its most recent audit (February 2025),¹⁸ Avara’s Northamptonshire slaughterhouse managed to rack up an impressive 11 hygiene and food safety breaches, and we would not recommend going anywhere near its Herefordshire slaughterhouse without a hazmat suit on. There were twelve breaches of hygiene and food safety laws, with three of them deemed “major”. This includes failing to work in ways that avoids contamination of meat that enters the food system.