A Woo request was submitted to the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) on 21 November 2024. This request concerned the number of poultry flocks slaughtered per slaughterhouse and the violations imposed in relation to catching injuries, in the period from 1 March to 1 November 2024. NVWA granted this request and issued a decision on 6 January 2025 to disclose the requested information. This revealed that flocks of poultry from abroad have more catch injuries.
The applicant requested NVWA to provide an overview of the number of poultry flocks slaughtered per slaughterhouse with permanent supervision, broken down into Dutch and foreign flocks. With an overview of the offences for catch injuries detected at these slaughterhouses, also broken down by origin of the flocks.
The NVWA considered the Woo request and found an internal document containing the requested information and decided to make it public. The NVWA stressed that disclosure of supervision information contributes to public debate and transparency of NVWA supervision. It is in line with the case law of the Administrative Law Division of the Council of State. This states that supervisory information should in principle be public, unless there are special circumstances that prevent disclosure.
The dataset made public includes the number of poultry flocks slaughtered per slaughterhouse in the Netherlands with a distinction between flocks from the Netherlands and abroad and the offences detected at these slaughterhouses with regard to catch injuries.
Sample data from the disclosed dataset:
Slaughterhouse | Date | Number of couples | Origin | Catch-all offense |
Plukon Goor B.V. | 01-03-2024 | 14 | Abroad | Yes |
Plukon Goor B.V. | 04-03-2024 | 4 | Netherlands | No |
Storteboom Food Group B.V. | 07-03-2024 | 3 | Abroad | Yes |
Storteboom Food Group B.V. | 08-03-2024 | 8 | Netherlands | No |
Note: This is a representative example; the full dataset contains much more data.
An interested party submitted a view and requested anonymisation of company data. This request was rejected by the NVWA because supervision information should in principle be public, according to the Council of State. Animal welfare, food safety and supervision are matters of public interest. And any reputation damage or commercial disadvantages for companies are not a valid reason to withhold information.
The NVWA has thus decided that slaughterhouses will remain named in the disclosed documents.
The disclosed data shows that there are significant differences in the number of violations detected between domestic versus foreign flocks. The dataset shows that foreign flocks are more likely to be found in violation during inspections for trapping injuries. This may indicate stricter trapping and transport procedures in the Netherlands, while trapping methods are less strictly controlled in other countries.
In addition, some slaughterhouses score significantly worse on trapping injuries than others. This may have to do with company policy and enforcement of animal welfare rules, trapping and transport methods prior to slaughter and the extent to which the NVWA takes stricter action at certain plants.
Source: https://open.overheid.nl/documenten/51b96fc7-2f5a-401d-aab8-1194a95972a1/file
