More than 20 local authorities have five or less butchers and abattoirs as mounting pressure is placed on the British meat industry, damning new figures reveal.
The City of London, Windsor and Maidenhead, Southampton, Midlothian, Blaenau Gwent, and Merthyr Tydfil have less than five butcheries each, according to NOMIS.
Meanwhile, Torfaen, the Vale of Glamorgan, Rutland, Bracknell Forest as well as East and West Dunbartonshire also fall into the same category.
Elsewhere in Southampton, there are only two meat manufacturers per 100,000 people despite boasting a population of over quarter of a million.
Our interactive map is based on the most recent NOMIS Business Counts data, which rounds the number of butchers and abattoirs to the nearest five.
Among the hardest hit cities was Liverpool, with less than three butcheries per 100,000 people between its population of over half a million.
In the Isle of Scilly there is only one singular butchers, while some areas in the UK have hemorrhaged around 70 butchers and abattoirs since 2010.
It comes as farmers fear that a sharp decline in smaller abattoirs could spark disruption in rural beef and lamb supply chains across the UK.
An industry source told the Daily Mail: ‘It is pretty alarming, how quickly butchers and abattoirs are disappearing.
’The decline doesn’t only impact the person who owns the abattoir, it affects the farmers who want to have their animals slaughtered a certain way.
‘It’s a threat to not only the meat industry but the agriculture, rural areas and the UK’s food security as a whole.’
Around 1305 slaughterhouses and butchers have closed their doors since 2010 – a time when there were over seven thousand across the UK.
In the last fifteen years, Lancashire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire have seen the largest fall in meat producers and sellers.
Each local authority has seen a decrease of around 70, 60, and 45 respectively.
And as of 2025, a total of 22 councils across the UK have five or less butchers and abattoirs.
Of the around 85 meat manufacturers to close this year, was the much-loved family business Anderson Butcher’s in Buckie, Scotland.
In September, the local firm confirmed with a ‘heavy heart’ that they would be closing their doors due to ‘sleepless nights’ and a ‘constant rise in costs’.
Five-hundred-eighty-three miles south in Penarth, Cardiff, family-run Thompsons Butchers also shut its doors in July of this year.
Residents were left in mourning after the shock of discovering the closed sign which appeared after the firm had been serving generations of locals.
‘I’ve used Thompsons Penarth for all my meat purchases for over 36 years and am devastated that it has had to closed,’ a local told the Penarth Times.
And smaller slaughterhouses are also feeling the pinch with around 10 percent closing every year amid fears they may disappear in the next decade.
Luke Smith, who runs Down Land Traditional Meals in West Sussex, said he was ‘incredibly concerned’ about the meat industry’s future.
The small abattoir owner believed without financial help from the government his business will struggle to survive.
Among the challenges are ‘an aging workforce’ among slaughtermen with the average age being 63, and the thousands spent on disposing of animal waste.
‘The abattoir is not viable and is making a loss. I’m running a wholesale butchery, that’s what’s keeping our business alive,’ he told the BBC
’We do need support and funding.’
Meanwhile the number of abattoirs has declined from 2,500 in the 1970s to just 203 in 2023, the publication reported.
In Farnborough, Hampshire, farmers feared for their future after Newman’s slaughterhouse closed this April.
Around 1305 slaughterhouses and butchers have closed their doors since 2010 – a time when there were over seven thousand
An industry source told the Daily Mail: ‘It is pretty alarming, how quickly butchers and abattoirs are disappearing
The family-run abattoir had been responsible for slaughtering livestock on the Isle of Wight since the 1950s, which was returned to the island for sale.
Richard Salter, a beef farmer, said the small slaughterhouse tended to the needs of smaller farmers and they knew how the animals would be treated.
Angus Baird, a sheep farmer on the island, said: ‘That’s why small abattoirs have got to be about because the big ones are usually tied up with supermarkets and they wouldn’t want to do this.
’It’s nice to have Isle of Wight produce back here. People like local meat now.’
Newman’s then owner, Ben Brown told the BBC: ‘Small abattoirs and local livestock farmers producing high quality, high welfare animals are an important part of our supply chain,’
He warned moving towards ‘generic factories’ would impact the quality of food and also ‘the feel of the countryside’.
‘The Isle of Wight’s natural beauty is reliant on the farmed environment,’ he said at the time`
It comes after the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) issued a stark warning about the closure of smaller abattoirs.
The AHDB said the sharp decline of smaller abattoirs would be ‘detrimental’ to both the farming industry and rural communities.
The UK meat industry plays a major role in adjacent industries such as dairy, which contributes over half the cattle slaughtered for beef in Britain.
As of 2023, the UK meat industry employed as much as 97,000 people and supported around 50,000 farmers, Farmers Digest reported.
And the number of abattoirs in England producing meat and lamb fell by 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively, between 2019 and 2024.
The decline has mostly been attributed to the closure of small and medium sized, while larger abattoirs upped their production volume.
Meanwhile, the restructuring has seen the slaughter of cattle rise by 5.5 percent in Britain.
But it has meant darker times for the sheep slaughtering business, which reported a 13 percent decline to 11.4 million head in the same time frame.
Annabel Twinberrow, livestock, retail and consumer analyst at AHDB said the closure of small abattoirs is ‘detrimental to the wider supply chain.’
‘As well as the social and welfare benefits they bring, smaller and localised abattoirs provide vital business to farmers, butchers and rural communities, including private kill services that support direct sales to consumers,’ she explained
The AHDB’s report maintained a resilient meat industry is key in backing domestic production as well as protecting food security.
It comes as UK government data showed a huge spike in imported sheep meat of 40 percent, around 67,880 tonnes – the highest since 2018.
Meat shipped from New Zealand and Australia, increased by 14,300 and 6,500 tonnes respectively, according to The Farmers Guide.
This now means sheep imports from the two countries make up 86 percent of sheep meat imports, an increase of eight percent since 2023.
The Daily Mail has contacted the AHDB, the British Meat Processers Association and the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers for comment.
Last year, Britain’s meat industry feared ‘disaster’ as new rules to limit cheap foreign labour mean it would be forced to pay migrant workers £12,000 more than locals.
There where fears the price of meat could have soared and businesses would go under due to laws that raise the salary threshold for skilled worker visas by nearly 50 per cent, from £26,200 to £38,700.
EU citizens currently make up 70 per cent of the UK’s abattoir staff as the industry has struggled to recruit British workers.
A spokeswoman for the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) said the government’s plan to stop the UK becoming swamped with cheap foreign labour has led to a disastrous ‘one size fits all’ policy.
