A 34-year-old worker dies at a meat processing plant in Sant Miquel de Balenyà

BarcelonaA 34-year-old worker at the meat processing company Embutidos Monells, in Sant Miquel de Balenyà (Osona), died on Monday after becoming trapped while operating a machine. It is a company that produces 45% of the bacon sold throughout SpainThe company also specializes in cooked ham, turkey, and cured pork loin. It works with all supermarket chains, and 65% of its products are sold sliced. The company's CEO, Maria Àngels Sebastià, confirmed the accident to the newspaper ARA but declined to provide further information because "it is under investigation by the competent authorities." "We are deeply saddened and deeply regret the loss," she emphasized. The incident occurred around 6:30 a.m. So far, only the worker's age—34—has been released; his nationality has not been specified. The Embutidos Monells factory in Sant Miquel de Balenyà employs approximately 650 people, 55% of whom are foreign nationals from forty different countries. In addition, the company has another production plant in Les Masies de Voltregà, also in Osona, with another 150 workers. Emergency Medical Service (SEM) personnel were dispatched to the factory, but were unable to save the worker's life. Citizen security and investigation patrols from the Vic police station of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan Police) were also dispatched and reported the accident to the duty magistrate in Vic and the Catalan Government's Department of Business and Labor.

ANDMonells cured meats was initially a family business, but at the end of 2014 it became part of the Argal Alimentación group, 50.1% of which is currently owned by Morliny Foods, which in turn belongs to the Chinese WH group, the second largest meat company in the world. In 2024, it had a turnover of €184 million and net profits of €6.35 million. In 2023, its profits were even higher: €8.3 million. Sant Miquel de Balenyà, for its part, is a small village of only 1,200 inhabitants, belonging to the municipality of Seva. Most of its houses were built from the 1960s onwards for the workers of a chair factory. Therefore, most of its houses are the same: two-story houses with an interior courtyard.

Currently, however, most of the workers at Embutidos Monells don't live in the village, and the few who do are completely isolated. The neighbors don't interact with them, and vice versa.

This Monday, however, the neighbors were discussing the accident in the few shops in the village, after the news circulated in a WhatsApp group called Sant Miquel de Balenyà Security, created by the residents themselves a few months ago.

The Embutidos Monells production plant is very close to the village houses. A neighbor who lives directly opposite explained that he didn't hear about the incident because they are "so used to the noise" from the factory that they have "normalized" it.

Growth of meat processing

Osona is a region with a rich industrial base, but it stands out above all for its powerful food industry, which has grown at a faster rate than other sectors and has become one of the economic engines of Catalonia, according to the Osona Socioeconomic Observatory. Thirty thousand pigs are slaughtered in the region every day. This growth would have been unfeasible without low-skilled foreign labor, according to the same observatory. Locals no longer want to do this work.

Just as these meat companies began to grow more and more from 2010 onwards, housing construction in the region came to a halt due to the real estate crisis. There has also been no planning whatsoever for infrastructure or worker transportation.

Embutidos Monells is one of the meat companies in the region that has grown and intends to grow even more: it has doubled its workforce over the last decade. However, the president of the Decentralized Municipal Entity (EMD) of Sant Miquel de Balenyà, Inès Puigneró, assures that there is no forecast for housing construction in the town because "there is no land." The mayor of Seva, Pol Barnils (Sumem), corroborates this.