Photos and footage - protest
Photos and footage - FTP investigation

• Around 20 animal advocates are staging a protest outside the gates of Ralph’s Meat Co slaughterhouse in Seymour, Victoria.
• The protest is in response to new hidden camera footage, released by animal rights group Farm Transparency Project, which shows cows seemingly maintaining consciousness as their throats are slit and while they bleed out, as well as severely emaciated cows being herded to slaughter. The slaughterhouse is now under investigation by the federal Department of Agriculture as a result of the footage.
• The group has said that they intend to attempt to stop trucks dropping off cows at the slaughterhouse in order to capture footage of animals and offer them kindness. They are also calling on the slaughterhouse to release one of the cows awaiting slaughter into their care, who will be taken to an animal sanctuary.

Campaigners from animal rights group Farm Transparency Project (FTP), have set up outside the gates at Ralph’s Meat Co slaughterhouse in Seymour, Victoria in a protest against what the group is calling “painful, ineffective and horrific” stunning and slaughter of animals at the facility. Yesterday the group took action at the companys stall at the South Melbourne Market, peacefully disrupting the business for over an hour. 

The protest comes after FTP released new footage from the facility captured using hidden cameras which were installed by the group in early 2024. The footage shows malnourished and injured cows suffering for minutes as they are ineffectively stunned and sometimes killed while fully conscious. The footage has sparked a formal investigation of the facility by Primesafe, the federal Department of Agriculture, and Agriculture Victoria, which according to local sources has already led to Ralph's firing some of their staff. 

Founder and Executive Director of Farm Transparency Project, Chris Delforce, says that today's protest is a direct response to the footage which he describes as sickening. 

“What we’re seeing in this footage is far from the fantasy of a quick and painless death that most consumers believe animals bred for meat and dairy experience. Workers use painful electric prods to force terrified cows up a race and into a metal knockbox where they are shot in the head, sometimes multiple times. Even so, many cows remain conscious and can be seen blinking and even trying to stand while their throats are slit and as they slowly and painfully bleed out.”

“This is not humane. This is a horror movie.”

“What we want people to understand is that these cows don’t just come from the beef industry. Many of them, including the most malnourished and mistreated, are ex-dairy cows, killed at a fraction of their natural lifespan because they no longer produce enough milk to be profitable. Most Australians are animal lovers and we don’t believe that this cruelty and suffering is something that they would want to support if they were aware of it.”

Ralph’s Meat Co is an export licensed slaughterhouse, killing up to 500 cows, steers and bulls every day.