The welfare challenges at slaughter and the evidence base for improving stunning and killing methods.
The slaughter process represents one of the most significant welfare risks in animal production, yet it occurs at the point where oversight is most difficult to maintain. Effective pre-stunning is essential to prevent conscious suffering during killing, and the welfare consequences of stunning failure are severe. Audit, inspection, and camera monitoring have all been shown to improve compliance with welfare standards, but these tools are unevenly applied across different countries and facility types. Consumer and regulatory pressure to raise and enforce standards is among the most direct way to improve welfare at this stage.