Food watchdogs are calling for CCTV to be installed in slaughterhouses to help improve animal welfare standards. Tim Smith of the Food Standards Agency is developing a plan for the industry within the next six months. It will recommend that cameras are installed to help ensure that the highest health, hygiene and animal welfare standards are followed. The calls come after a recent European Union veterinary inspection exposed poor hygiene at UK abattoirs and meat cutting plants. Animal Aid a welfare campaign group have also filmed cruelty to pigs and sheep at an organic certified abattoir in Devon. As a result of these findings  every aspect of welfare and risk is now being reviewed across the country’s 400 abattoirs to ensure more traceability in the meat industry. Although the agency would not be able to force meat companies to install surveillance cameras they hope to come to some voluntary agreement. The RSPCA on the other hand is backing compulsory cameras in all meat plants and hopes to make it a requirement for meat produced under its Freedom Food label.