Revealed: industrial-scale beef farming comes to the UK

Investigation uncovers about a dozen intensive beef units, despite assurances that US-style practices would not happen here

Thousands of British cattle reared for supermarket beef are being fattened in industrial-scale units where livestock have little or no access to pasture.

Research by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has established that the UK is now home to a number of industrial-scale fattening units with herds of up to 3,000 cattle at a time being held in grassless pens for extended periods rather than being grazed or barn-reared.