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PigStun: Presentation & discussion of project results on April 4th

Source photo: Compaxo
Summary
  • Subject
    invitation, pigstun, animal welfare
  • Target audience
    Policy workers, official veterinarians, animal welfare inspectors
Watch the sources
On Friday 4th April the DG SANTE funded project PigStun presented the outcomes of its research into alternatives for conventional high CO2 stunning, during a live meeting in Brussels. Nearly 200 delegates joined the live meeting or followed the interactive webstream.

The PigStun project started in 2022 with the aim to improve animal welfare during the stunning process of pigs in slaughterhouses. In this European project, researchers and slaughterhouses in Germany, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands worked together to test alternative stunning methods for pigs to replace conventional CO2 stunning.

The following alternatives were presented:

  1. Optimised CAS process, in which pre-stunning handling and gas mixture are adjusted in a conventional CO2 system
  2. Argon Retrofit System, in which the inert gas argon replaces CO2
  3. Helium Stunning System, in which CO2 is substituted by Helium
  4. Improved Electric stunning process, in which pigs are stunned in an electric stunning system with an optimised pre-stun handling facility

Details

The meeting started around 9:00, with an opening address by DG SANTEs deputy Director General. Delegates learned about the PigStun results, and engaged in discussions with the researchers about their conclusions and recommendations. The meeting ended at approximately 13:00 hours. A recording of the meeting can be viewed here on DG SANTE’s website.

Program

08:30 - 09:30

Registration and Coffee

09:30 - 09:45

Opening: Deputy Director General DG SANTE

Chair: Hans Spoolder and Andrea Gavinelli

Project introduction and description of the 4 alternative systems in the ‘Pigstun’-project

09:45 - 10:15

The ‘PigStun’ Project: Objectives and description of the alternative systems (Dr. Ing. Marien Gerritzen, Wageningen Livestock Research, The Netherlands)

Results

10:15-10:30

Animal Welfare (Dr. Antonio Velarde, Institute for Food and Agricultural Research and Technology, Spain)

10:30 - 10:45

Meat Quality (Dr. Daniel Lindegaard Hjorth Lund, Danish Meat Research Institute, Denmark)

10:45 - 11:15

Coffebreak

11:15 - 11:30

Social, economic and environmental impacts (Prof. Dr. Jan Tind Sørensen, Aarhus University, Denmark)

11:30 - 11:45

Ease of conversion (Rikke Bonnichsen, Danish Meat Research Institute, Denmark)

11:45 - 12:00

Insights from case slaughterhouses on the alternatives (Prof. Dr. Hanne Kongsted, Aarhus University, Denmark)

Final Conclusions and recommendations

12:00 - 12:15

Conclusions en some recommendations (Dr. Ing. Marien Gerritzen, Wageningen Livestock Research, The Netherlands)

12:15 - 13:00

Discussion

13:00

Closure of the Meeting

Partners

Dossier

(1)