@Eddie - You may very well be right, that large commercial abbatoirs cut corners, in order to fulfill their quota.
I have worked in an abbatoir - many years ago, as a teenager -and we found time to stun them properly, but that was a local one with a relatively small throughput.
Like ludwig, and em, and others here, I want some degree of assurance that the animal that was slaughtered to provide my meat was slaughtered humanely - and that, to me means a proper pre-stun.
Just to shrug and accept the status quo is not acceptalbe, but as consumers the only power you have is your buying power- that is why I have made the effort to find a local butcher, and one fortunately that seems competitively priced.
For others, this might not be a hot button issue, but I think for a substantial proportion of the population it would be...