The new Slaughterhouse of Faial, whose construction will start next year, represents a governmental investment of nearly six million Euros.

The information was released today in Horta by the Regional Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry during the presentation session of the project for the construction of the slaughterhouse, which will have a covered area of  2,305 square metres.

For the government official, the new slaughterhouse "is a modern structure" that "will make farmers' life easier,” replacing an infrastructure that had "no operational conditions and was inadequate" for the meat production capacity of Faial island.

According to Noé Rodrigues, the existing slaughterhouse on Faial, whose construction dates back to 1995-96, was primarily built to "meet local consumption needs."

However, the Government considers that industrial slaughterhouses "must respond to the possibility of strengthening our export capacity"; therefore, we have decided to "undertake a revolution" in the entire regional network of slaughterhouses.

Noé Roberts also considered that this new slaughterhouse "provides Faial farmers with the possibility of reinforcing the export of meat" whether in carcass or ready for consumption. Likewise, this infrastructure will also reduce costs with the slaughter and marketing of animals as well as with the transport fares to Pico island.

Moreover, this plant will provide Faial farmers “with a modern slaughter platform with specific areas for processing by-products which will be located separately from the clean areas of the slaughterhouse”. This infrastructure is "the most modern of all the slaughterhouses built in the archipelago."

According to the Regional Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry, the new slaughterhouse will be installed in the Industrial Zone of Santa Bárbara in an 8,827 square metre plot transferred by the municipality of Horta. In contrast, and according to the protocol signed, the Autonomous Region of the Azores will transfer to this municipality the current slaughterhouse when the new infrastructure enters into operation.

The new building, whose construction is expected to take about a year, will have a daily slaughter capacity of about 40 cows and 40 pigs while the cutting room will have a capacity for processing 10 cattle and 20 swine carcasses.

In turn, the refrigerator infrastructures of the new slaughterhouse will include nine refrigerated chambers: three for storing suspicious ruminant specimens, suspicious swine specimens and rejected specimens; two for cooling and preserving carcasses; one for stabilisation/conservation purposes; one for white meat offal; one for red meat offal and one for packaged products.

For the processing of by-products, the new slaughterhouse will also feature a large grinding unit, a cold storage unit and a silo for storing gastric contents.

The construction project also includes a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) with capacity to treat an average flow of 120 cubic metres per day using prolonged biological oxidation.