Challenge:

Manage expectations about working in Europe’s largest butcher.

Director | Hugo Keijzer

The Vion plant in Boxtel is the biggest pig butcher in Europe. Not an easy place to work, but there’s more than meets the eye: the people there, many from Eastern Europe, take pride in their work. It’s hard labor, not just anybody is capable of it. It’s technical: due to regulations and requirements, it’s a craft and it’s purposeful: working with food means working to provide an much demanded commodity to the world: feeding people, in other words. People working at Vion are proud. However, Vion noticed that new hires were unaware of what it would be like to work there and first impressions created the wrong expectations. Therefore, Vion asked us to create a film to give a true to life first impression, even before new colleagues arrived to the plant on the first day. As filmmakers, we are proud to have been given the opportunity to create a true to life documentary portrait and be invited into a world that is easily overlooked, but a daily part of most of our lives.