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The Dying Trade, a new documentary film from Jack Hancock-Fairs, unpacks the “hidden human cost” of the meat processing industry on its workers.
Hancock-Fairs is best known for his YouTube content, which he produces under the moniker Humane Hancock, and which has been viewed over three million times. The Dying Trade is his filmmaking debut and is already nominated for several awards.
Read more: UK’s Worst Ammonia Pollution Hotspots Correlate With Factory Farms
The Dying Trade focuses on Hancock-Fairs himself, a filmmaker and vegan activist, and his father, a career slaughterhouse worker, as they discuss the negative impact of meat production on people and animals after “years of avoiding the subject.”
The Dying Trade includes contributions from: Temple Grandin, an authority on humane livestock handling; Alex Hershaft, a Holocaust survivor and animal rights advocate; Gail Eisnitz, an undercover investigator and the author of 1997’s Slaughterhouse; “Tom,” an anonymous slaughterhouse worker; and Rachel Macnair, a psychologist who specialises in participation-induced traumatic stress (PITS).
PITS occurs when post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are caused by killing or acts of extreme violence, and is well-documented in combat veterans and police officers. Measurable trauma symptoms of this kind have also been documented in animal lab workers, veterinarians, and slaughterhouse workers.
In a statement sent to Plant Based News (PBN), Hancock-Fairs noted that the film does not vilify slaughterhouse workers. Instead, it “shines a light” on their moral discomfort, trauma, and coping strategies, which can include substance use.
‘It stays with you the rest of your life’
In the documentary, Tom recalls an incident where he skinned a cow alive on the line, while she was giving birth. “It takes 25 seconds, but it stays with you for the rest of your life.” He adds that you have to “become a robot” to stay in the job.
Slaughterhouse workers have said similar things before, describing “dissociation” and becoming “numb to death and suffering.” The job is strongly linked to “negative psychological and behavioral outcomes,” including mental health disorders.
One study found that 13.8 percent of slaughterhouse workers screened positive for a depressive disorder, compared to 3.4 percent amongst the general population, while workers on the kill floor experienced more distress than those on the cut floor.
Working in a slaughterhouse is extremely dangerous, and in the UK, an average of two workers are injured per week. In the US, there can be around two amputations per week, primarily due to the industry’s excessive pace and poor conditions.
Read more: AI And Animals: New Documentary Warns Of ‘Factory Farming 2.0’
‘A documentary that can change lives’
The Dying Trade has already been nominated for several awards, including Best Documentary at Unrestricted View Film Festival and British Urban Film Festival, while Hancock-Fairs himself has been nominated for Best Director at British Urban.
On IMDb, early reviewers have called the film “fantastic and thought-provoking,” “powerful,” “haunting,” and “a compassionate view from both sides.”
Peter Singer, the moral philosopher who popularized the term “speciesism” and authored 1975’s Animal Liberation, described The Dying Trade as “a documentary that can change lives,” and one with “consequences that reach far beyond one family.”
The animal slaughter and meat processing sectors employ nearly 100,000 people in the UK and roughly 550,000 people in the US. Together, the UK and US kill nearly 11 billion animals per year, most of them factory farmed. The current food system is already unsustainable, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) previously projected that demand for meat could increase by more than 73 percent by 2050.
Assuming proportional growth and limited further automation, the UK and US industries alone could require more than one million workers to slaughter and process as many as 19 billion animals annually by the middle of the century.
The Dying Trade premieres at 6 pm on May 13, 2026, on YouTube.
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