WHEN Guardia Civil officers raided a meat company in a small Malaga village, the last thing they expected to find was blood-soaked floors, unrefrigerated pork and unidentified fluids.
Officers from the Guardia Civil’s environmental protection unit, Seprona, also discovered 30.5 tonnes of meat and bones, which have been seized and destroyed.
Two people are under investigation for crimes against public health and falsification of private documents, in the small town of Benaojan, near Ronda.
The inquiry began in December 2025, when Seprona officers found an unregistered second warehouse on the site.
Inside, the Guardia Civil said, there were “serious hygiene deficiencies”, with meat stored without refrigeration and products lying on the floor “among fluids and dirt.”
Footage released by the force shows meat products dumped directly on the ground.
Lab tests later showed that the company had been soaking pork bones and spines in a 50% hydrogen peroxide solution.
Hydrogen peroxide at that strength is for industrial use, and its use in the food industry is expressly prohibited.
The Guardia Civil and the Junta de Andalucia warned that soaking bones in the chemical results in “a high risk of severe burns and corrosive damage to the digestive tract”.
READ MORE: Health alert in Spain’s Andalucia: 12 popular meat products are found to contain deadly listeria
Investigators say the meat was treated in the unlicensed warehouse and then moved to the legal plant to disguise it before it was sold.
The Junta’s health department in Malaga ordered the site to be shut down immediately and all contaminated meat and bones to be destroyed.
Benaojan, home to 1,427 people, depends heavily on the meat industry.
Around ten companies employ some 400 local people directly and indirectly.
The village was hit hard by Spain’s 2019 listeria crisis, when the Junta extended a health alert to all products from the La Montanera del Sur brand, made by another Benaojan-based company.
That alert came after seven people who ate a batch of chicharron at a restaurant during Ronda’s fair fell ill, one of whom was hospitalised.
It followed the outbreak linked to La Mecha shredded meat, produced by Seville firm Magrudis, Spain’s biggest-ever listeria outbreak.
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