Cows on farms supplying M&S and Muller abused

Shocking footage reveals animals kicked and hit with chains

- JANE DALTON, CLAIRE COLLEY

Workers at dairy farms supplying yoghurt giant Muller and Marks & Spencer hit cows with poles, kicked them and yelled abuse at them, undercover footage has revealed.

One employee – at an M&S poster farm for animal welfare standards – ran at a cow, angrily shouting “You’re fucking r*****ed,” then appeared to jab her with a sharp object. The footage, taken at a milk producer with RSPCA Assured endorsement that supplies both M&S and Muller, also shows a tractor being driven at speed at cows to force them to run away.

M&S said it immediately suspended the farm after being shown the footage while it investigated, and it’s understood a worker elsewhere was sacked after The Independent showed Muller the video clips. The RSPCA also suspended the farm after seeing the video. Both M&S and Muller said they set high standards of animal welfare that they expected suppliers to follow.

But activist Joey Carbstrong, who secretly put the cameras in place, claimed the video clips showed that cows in the dairy industry were routinely abused when workers thought they were not being watched. In a series of scenes of violence at two UK farms, workers were seen repeatedly hitting cows with metal chains and poles, kicking them and shouting offensive language at them.

Early sections of the video, taken in 2022 at a farm that M&S has previously featured in its advertising, claiming it promotes high animal welfare, appear to show a worker angrily running after a cow and swearing before he pulls a screwdriver or another tool from his pocket and jabs it into the cow’s side.