The issue of farm animal welfare may have reached a significant tipping point as Compassion in World Farming recognised food businesses from all corners of the globe at their annual Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards.
Held in Berlin on 28 June and hosted by singer/songwriter and animal welfare advocate Blanche Elliz, the animal charity announced winners from North and South America, Australasia, China and Europe demonstrating that awareness of farm animal welfare is rising in the public and business consciousness globally.
The Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards celebrate the commitment of leading food businesses to improve animal welfare standards and the higher welfare policies and practices of this year’s 41 main award winners (and SME’s) are set to benefit over 85 million animals each year.
The number of food service businesses achieving a Compassion Award has doubled this year to 14, while 17 manufacturers and 10 retailers have also been recognised.
The annual Awards comprise the Good Egg Award, Good Chicken Award, Good Dairy Award, Good Pig Award and Good Rabbit Award.
This year there were three additional awards: Best Innovation Award and Best Marketing Award for the food service and manufacturing sectors, as well as the 2nd Special Recognition Award, which was introduced for the first time last year.
This year’s Awards saw a whole raft of ‘firsts’. Not only did Compassion start to raise awareness of farm animal welfare in South America by presenting Chilean hen farmer, Pablo Albarren from Ecoterra with a Good Egg Award, but there was also the first Good Egg Award presented for quail egg production, and the first full Good Pig Awards in Italy.
Known for its quality hams and cured meats, Italy may be perceived as a country where pig welfare is high on the agenda.
Yet there is still widespread routine tail docking, teeth-clipping/grinding and castration without pain relief of meat pigs, reared in over-crowded barren pens; as well as the use of sow stalls (in the observation period) and farrowing crates for sows.
The commitment by both Fumagalli (who supply Waitrose) and Primavera to address the needs of sows and meat pigs is a major step forward and saw the first full Good Pig Award winners in Italy.
That’s why Fumagalli’s planned marketing and communications activities focusing on the need for higher welfare production, highlighting their commitments, promoting their products and encouraging others to follow suit, is so important.
Clarence Court, part of Stonegate, was presented a Good Egg Award for their free-to-fly quail egg production.
No legislation or industry standard exists for quail farming in the EU, and Clarence Court has taken the initiative to develop their own indoor barn system to provide a higher welfare alternative to the caged systems commonly used across Europe.
Caged production is also the most common system for rabbits globally. This year Compassion was proud to award Kani-Swiss (and Coop Switzerland who worked with them) with a full Good Rabbit Award to celebrate their innovative group housing system.
They have been working on since the 1990s, solving one of the biggest barriers for progress in doe welfare, allowing socialisation, as well as providing space to live and an enriched, stimulating environment.
Better systems for farm animals 'can be developed'
Tracey Jones, Director of Food Business at Compassion said: "The ground breaking investment in higher welfare systems and practices for pigs in Italy, rabbits in Switzerland and quail in the UK is outstanding, demonstrating that better systems for farm animals can be developed and supported by the market place.
"To my mind these awards demonstrate that a real step change in attitudes and approach towards farm animal welfare is taking place.
"Thanks to all our winners, farm animals who are so often caged or crated, can have a life worth living and even a good life, where their needs are met and the value of their lives embraced."
This year saw Compassion open up their Best Innovation and Best Marketing Awards to manufacturers and food service companies for the first time, looking to recognise some of the leading work happening in these sectors.
Best Marketing Award 2016
The Best Marketing Award 2016 was awarded to McDonald’s UK for two initiatives; their TV advertising around tree cover for laying hens and their ‘Good to Know’ campaign.
‘The Tree’ advert was based on peer reviewed research they helped fund that showed how increased tree cover on the range where the laying hens roamed resulted in more hens ranging, and importantly lower mortality, reduced feather pecking and better quality eggs.
The beautifully executed advert took consumers onto the farm to see for themselves the benefit to the hens of planting more trees.
The ‘Good to Know’ campaign ran across numerous marketing channels for maximum impact including radio, social media, print, tray liners and via McDonald’s website hub promoting free range eggs and the other higher welfare ingredients in their food – resulting in massive consumer reach.
Best Innovation Award 2016
The Best Innovation Award 2016 was awarded to Plukon Food Group in the Netherlands for their ‘Windstreek Stable’ – a new design of broiler shed incorporating multiple features for improved welfare (including slower growing breeds, more space, a variety of enrichments and natural light) going above and beyond Compassion’s Good Chicken Award criteria.
The innovative brooders provide a warm, safe resting place for the chickens throughout life, and combined with the use of natural ventilation, means the system uses 80 per cent less energy.
Plukon are also promoting this system to the industry and the resultant higher welfare products to consumers – helping to create a market for higher welfare chicken.
Special Recognition Award
Finally, a Special Recognition Award was awarded to Whole Foods Market in the US in conjunction with Global Animal Partnership (GAP) for their commitment to slower-growing breeds and better living conditions for chickens in the US.
In a market-leading move, GAP has committed to replace 100 per cent of fast-growing chicken breeds with slower-growing breeds over the next eight years for all levels of its 5-Step® Rating Program in the USA and for all levels to meet or exceed the criteria of the Good Chicken Award.
Whole Foods Market has committed to implementing the new chicken standard across all its fresh and frozen chicken by 2024.
This move is the first major, specific, time-bound commitment to address the negative effects of fast growth on chicken health and welfare in the USA where both supply and demand for slower-growing breeds are currently severely lacking. By taking this one action the lives of 245 million birds in the USA will be improved.
Tracey Jones commented: "We congratulate all our award winners; together, the impact of their policies and practices means that over 85 million animals are set to benefit each year – a phenomenal number but, as we have seen, the tip of the iceberg.
"The Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards always make me very proud of what has been achieved so far but also serves to remind me that there is still much to be done to spread the animal welfare message and ensure more and more businesses globally realise there is not just an ethical imperative to address farm animal welfare but a commercial one too."
