Foyle Food Group

Berryfields Farm in Daventry, which supplies meat to Foyles, is a US-style feedlot where cows are kept indoors on concrete floors or in enclosed muddy paddocks. This is a far cry from the images Foyle Food Group likes to present of cows in pastures and strolling over rolling hills.⁴ Greenwashing is alive and well, unlike the cows farmed for Foyles.

An investigation at Berryfields Farm found severely lame animals, as well as animals being beaten and attacked by workers.⁵ Those workers were heard discussing the poor state of the animals, suggesting that in the past cows had been “dying left, right, and centre”.⁶ This farm supplied Tesco, Wetherspoons, and Lidl.

In 2019, a Foyle Food Group worker was found guilty of causing suffering to a cow when he used an electric goad on her for an agonising 45 minutes until she finally collapsed.⁷

At its Gloucester slaughterhouse, Foyle’s workers were unable to demonstrate that they could slaughter the cows without causing serious suffering. There were also “major” breaches when it came to both their restraining systems and stunning methods, both of which had the potential to cause severe suffering. (Audit date: August 2025.)

Foyle Food Group was fined for failing to control the terrible smells from its plant after a large number of complaints from local residents,⁸ including a woman who said it had made her and her grandchildren physically sick.⁹

In 2018, Foyle Food Group exceeded acceptable effluent levels, when it discharged almost four times the allowed level of phosphorus and 12 times the limit for “suspended solids”. The company was fined £40,000.¹⁰

It wasn’t a one-off. In 2021, Foyle admitted exceeding the permitted level of chemicals in the waste that it discharged into the Drumragh River. It was fined another £6,000.¹¹

The most recent health and hygiene audits at Foyle’s slaughterhouses reveal a worrying picture. The Gloucestershire plant racked up 16 health and hygiene breaches, some of them very serious, including not adequately preventing contamination entering the food chain. The Melton Mowbray and Omagh plants had nine health and hygiene breaches each.¹² We’ll just say this: It takes a brave person to eat meat from Foyle Food Group.

During Covid, 40 workers at the Omagh site became sick¹³ and the high volume of complaints from frightened staff triggered a health and safety inspection.¹⁴ At that time, workers in meat processing plants were particularly at risk of illness and death due to the conditions that they have to work in. 70 workers wrote to Foyle Food Group urging them to close the plant temporarily¹⁵ but their fears were ignored and the site stayed open. The full impact on workers’ health has not been publicly disclosed.

In 2010, Foyle Food Group went to court to stop a strike after 150 workers had voted to walk out over poor pay.¹⁶

But it seems that poor pay and bad conditions have not gone away. In 2024, one worker described their job at Foyle Food Group as “a soul crushing nightmare that has probably scarred me for life” while another said simply, “Glad I got away”.¹⁷