Retail Community Working to Improve Farm Animal Welfare

July 8, 2002


	Anonymous for Animal Rights, Israel

In the latest display of consumer power, two of the country's most influential trade associations—whose members buy meat and eggs for an estimated 146,000 grocery stores, chain restaurants and franchisees nationwide—implicitly acknowledged the growing public concern over farm animal welfare and admitted in June that some common farm practices are inhumane and need to change.

The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and the National Council of Chain Restaurants (NCCR) launched new guidelines on June 27, 2002, that could affect farms supplying virtually all of the fast food restaurants and supermarkets in the United States.

Unfortunately, critics say the "FMI-NCCR Animal Welfare Program" guidelines contain very few concrete improvements for animal welfare. Instead, the program contains a number of voluntary suggestions and requests for future action by FMI-NCCR members, with only a couple of immediate recommendations for reform.

In that respect, the new guidelines don't even go as far as the standards adopted by some of the associations' members, such as McDonald's and Burger King. The McDonald's Corporation, for example, does not allow its egg suppliers to subject their hens to forced molting—the practice of starving hens for a period to increase subsequent egg production—yet the new guidelines continue to allow this practice while looking for ways to achieve molting without starvation.

"We applaud FMI and NCCR for launching these guidelines," said Dr. Michael Appleby, vice president of The HSUS's Farm Animals and Sustainable Agriculture section. "It is encouraging that they acknowledge the importance of farm animal welfare. We regret that the guidelines do not include more substantial reforms of the many inhumane practices current in agriculture. However, FMI and NCCR have said that this is the start of an ongoing process, so we hope that future versions of the guidelines will take the need for change seriously."

FMI represents about 2,100 U.S. food retailers and wholesalers who operate approximately 26,000 stores nationwide, while NCCR represents 40 of the country's largest chain eateries with more than 120,000 individual restaurants or franchisees. Together, the members of these two organizations account for approximately half of the $843 billion in annual retail food sales in the United States. The major chain restaurants potentially impacted by these guidelines are McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Applebee's and Pizza Hut. The grocery chains include Albertson's, Safeway and Wal-Mart.

"This is the first time that the retail industry has clearly said the issue of farm animal welfare is important to it," says Karen Brown, senior vice president of FMI.

What's more, in a jointly released document, FMI-NCCR says the guidelines are the result of "almost two years of effort by the retail community working with an advisory panel of scientific experts in animal welfare to improve the care and handling of animals used for food."

While welcoming the organizations' proposed improvements for farm animals, Appleby remains concerned that the guidelines are voluntary—they may not be adopted by all FMI-NCCR members and their suppliers—and that many factory farming practices will continue for the foreseeable future. These include use of battery cages and beak trimming for egg producing hens, and gestation crates for pregnant sows.

A brief synopsis of the report includes the following animal welfare improvements, recommendations, and proposals:

For chickens:

Increasing the size of battery cages for egg-producing hens.
Employing beak trimming only when it's "necessary to prevent feather pecking and cannibalism."
Phasing out starvation molting.
Developing guidelines on levels for ammonia and light intensity in chicken houses.

For dairy cows:

Revamping the space allocations in stall housing: 10 stalls for each 12 cows.
Changing from tail docking to "switch trimming."
Establishing guidelines for procedures that should be performed by a veterinarian and with the use of anesthesia and analgesia.
Instituting age limits for castration and dehorning.

For pigs:

Providing gestating sows with larger stalls.

Proposals for broilers, turkeys, cattle (both on the ranch and in the feedlot), veal calves, and ducks are pending. To monitor the phase-in process, a measurable audit process is being proposed. With these new regulations, FMI-NCCR suggests there will be consistency across the U.S. retail sector.

FMI and NCCR are also consulting with the American Meat Institute and the National Chicken Council for slaughter guidelines, as well as the United Egg Producers for euthanasia guidelines. The animal welfare task force is expected to meet again in late summer and release more detailed guidelines in the fall.

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