Latest Investigation

For the first time in UK history, we covertly captured an M&S inspection at an award-winning, RSPCA Assured dairy farm in Gloucestershire.

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Content warning: This video contains footage of newborn calves being hit, kicked, thrown and subjected to painful mutilations.

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A veterinarian or animal handler in a green hoodie and gloves with calves. The calves are in a pen with bedding, and some are lying on the ground while one is sitting near the person.

A newborn calf is violently kicked by a female worker.

Between November 2025 and February 2026, hidden cameras at this award-winning dairy farm recorded newborn calves being kicked, hit, thrown, sworn at and force-fed synthetic milk – which caused one calf to drown due to milk being tubed into her lungs. Documents on the farm showed many other calves had also recently died by drowning.

The cameras caught calves being subjected to painful mutilations – including their sensitive horn buds burned off with hot irons and surgical castration with no anaesthetic.

Over three days in November 2025, we recorded more than

700 incidents of abuse.

Several calves were left without milk for up to 19 hours. Footage showed calves crying, circling and licking metal bars – signs of hunger and psychological distress, made worse by the recent separation from their mothers. Each calf was only hours’ or days’ old.

Many calves were suffering from diarrhoea, due to the synthetic milk formula they were fed, leaving them weak and their skin raw.

When investigators returned in February 2026 after the M&S inspection, similar abuse and neglect continued. By then, the farm was no longer RSPCA Assured, following Marks & Spencer’s removal of all its milk from the RSPCA Assured scheme after the RSPCA introduced updated dairy standards.

An independent animal welfare expert reviewed the footage and identified potential breaches across 12 areas of animal welfare law and 14 further welfare concerns.

What our cameras found

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Close-up of a dirty cow wearing an orange harness, standing on a wooden floor.

Diarrhea is common in calves due to the synthetic milk they have to drink.

A person operating a forklift on a farm, with metal carts and straw on the ground.

A dead calf is removed 3 hours before an inspection.

What the inspection missed

During our November visit, an M&S inspector arrived to assess the farm against RSPCA Assured welfare standards. But workers already knew they were coming, with a worker saying that morning:

“We’ve got an M&S inspection today… This could really look bad.”

Our cameras caught their clean-up operation, with workers hastily throwing more straw into the pens and removing a dead calf less than 3 hours before the assessor arrived.

The inspection lasted just 10 minutes. No pens were entered. No calves were physically examined. Less than a minute after the inspector left, the abuse resumed, with a worker repeatedly striking a calf in the face with a feeding tube.

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A person in a gray hoodie and black pants sitting on a bench or ledge next to a staircase with a wooden railing, in an indoor or outdoor setting with a green structure and a gray wall.

A hungry calf is abused by a female worker.

‘Higher welfare’ marketing

This farm is regarded as the ‘gold standard’ of the dairy industry:

  • It supplies M&S and Müller.

  • It has won industry awards for being ‘high welfare’.

  • Its co-owner sits on multiple industry boards (including the AHDB Dairy Council), and was a finalist for ‘Dairy Farmer of the Year’.

  • It carried the name of the UK's most trusted animal charity – the RSPCA.

When the RSPCA puts its name on a farm or slaughterhouse, it's telling the public:

This place has been approved by a charity whose only job is to protect animals from cruelty.

We believe the public has a right to know what ‘higher welfare’ and ‘RSPCA Assured’ actually looks like.

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Several calves in a pen with straw bedding, some standing and some lying down, with a person in a green jacket and helmet tending to them.

A calf is thrown to the ground by a female worker.

This investigation is different

We filmed during an M&S inspection, checking welfare standards at a farm carrying the RSPCA Assured label. This was the very moment when the system was supposed to protect animals.

Inspections – whether announced or unannounced – cannot catch abuse or neglect. Only undercover investigations expose what’s really happening to animals.

But why are other animal protection organisations having to investigate farms and slaughterhouses the RSPCA certifies?

The RSPCA exists to prevent cruelty, not approve it.

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  • “When I watched this footage, I found it genuinely sickening. I’ve seen farms like this first-hand, and it’s devastating. On dairy farms, calves are taken from their mothers within hours of birth, confined and subjected to mutilations. I stepped down as an RSPCA president because I could no longer support a scheme that certifies factory farming. The RSPCA must choose: protect animals, or certify their suffering. It can't do both.”

    — Chris Packham // broadcaster and former RSPCA President —

  • “I have prosecuted animal cruelty cases for the RSPCA, local authorities and other organisations, so I know what counts as cruelty and neglect. This footage shows serious welfare breaches – the kind that should be prosecuted without hesitation. So why was the RSPCA putting its name to this? The public are being misled. The RSPCA has built its reputation on protecting animals and the public trusts this label, yet RSPCA Assured are not ‘assuring’ anything. They are allowing suffering to continue, instead of exposing it and working to end it. That has to change.”

    — Ayesha Smart // barrister and specialist animal welfare prosecutor —

  • “The footage demonstrates welfare problems that unfortunately remain extremely common in dairy calf facilities. Behaviours – such as sucking of body parts, bar licking, and repeated crying – indicate high levels of emotional and physiological distress in the young calves. There was also considerable struggling and kicking when calves were confined to the restrainer device – known as a “crush” – for mutilations, such as the removal of horn buds. Widespread illegality was also evident, with staff frequently pushing, shoving and hitting calves. While footage like this is always extremely upsetting to watch, I have sadly not found the content surprising, as undercover exposés regularly reveal numerous legal and illegal animal welfare problems. Indeed, compromises to animal welfare are inherent to modern animal agriculture.”

    — Jenny Mace // animal welfare expert —

  • “The footage shows a worker repeatedly abusing calves with kicks, slaps, and twisting of the tail and ears in an attempt to fend off clearly hungry calves while another is being fed. This repeated and casual abuse is unacceptable behaviour, irrespective of the circumstances, and may constitute an offence under the Animal Welfare Act.”

    — Alick Simmons // former UK Government's Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer and UK Food Standards Agency's Veterinary Director —

Person in a reflective jacket working with machinery in a straw-filled environment.

A newborn calf is confined in a ‘crush’ while they have their horn buds burned off. This is permitted under RSPCA Assured standards.

Cruelty and suffering are systemic

Much of what this investigation exposes is not just a failure of this farm – it is permitted by the RSPCA Assured scheme.

The scheme allows newborn calves to: be separated from their mothers, be confined indoors, have horn buds burned off with hot irons, be castrated, be force-fed synthetic milk, and be slaughtered.

This is not about one bad farm or a few bad workers. It shows what the best of the industry actually looks like – and what that means for every animal in a factory farm the RSPCA puts its name to.

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See other investigations into RSPCA Assured farms and slaughterhouses

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