Benchmark report reveals animal welfare leaders

BBFAW benchmark is divided into 5 pillars which include farm animal welfare policy commitments and farm animal welfare targets. Photo: Koos Groenewold

The latest Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) reveals steady progress on farm animal welfare across the global food industry.

The report analysed 150 global food companies based on 51 criteria across 5 pillars, ranking them into 6 tiers. This year’s results are the second since using the new, more stringent criteria that puts greater emphasis on companies’ welfare performance and approach to reducing their reliance on animal sourced food. Of the global food companies, 94% acknowledge farm animal welfare as a business issue and 128 companies have published a farm animal welfare policy statement.

Accelerating action

Several companies are accelerating action on the farm animal welfare front, with 14 companies improving their overall average score by 5 or more percentage points. The biggest improvement seen was from Arla Foods, which improved their score by 23% moving from Tier 5 to Tier 4.

Greggs moved up a tier and joined Marks and Spencer and Waitrose in Tier 2 of the benchmark, meaning the companies have made farm animal welfare an integral part of their business strategy and achieved a score of between 62% and 80% against all BBFAW criteria.

Impact ratings

Marks & Spencer, Premier Foods and Fonterra all achieved high ‘B’ grades on BBFAW’s Impact Rating for the first time. Most notably Fonterra, with their singular focus on dairy, have placed a significant emphasis on global reporting and impact, resulting in a rise in their Impact Rating by three grades (from ‘E’ to ‘B’).

However, the BBFAW report mentioned that even with this progress, some major food companies were taking little or no actions to address farm animal welfare in their operations.

“I’m delighted we have been recognised as one of the top global performers on animal welfare by the BBFAW. This clearly demonstrates the commitment of our procurement colleagues as they maintain their focus on safeguarding and improving welfare standards within our supply chain.” – Gareth Pullan, Premier Foods director of procurement

Nicky Amos, executive director of the BBFAW, said it was encouraging to see companies responding positively to the more stringent criteria. “It’s not just animals that feel the benefit of those changes – with more space to roam and fewer farm animals suffering mutilations or long-distance live transportation. Companies feel the benefits too, in terms of building their reputation with consumers and getting ahead of potential regulation.”

Amos added: “While the leaders are picking up the pace, clearly much more needs to be done with the large majority of food companies, including many household names, stuck in BBFAW’s bottom 2 tiers. Too many food companies still provide limited evidence that they are managing animal welfare effectively.”

Other findings

According to the report:

23 companies (15%) have committed to ending the culling of day-old male chicks, compared to 18 companies (12%) in 2023.
70% of companies (99 of 149) with eggs in their supply chains publish a time-bound
target to achieve, or have already achieved 100% of eggs from cage-free sources (down from 73% in 2023).
30% of companies (40 of 134) with broiler chickens in their supply chain have
set a time-bound target to achieve the requirements for the Better or European
Chicken Commitment (down from 31% in 2023).
Only 42% of companies have commitments in place to end prophylactic and routine
metaphylactic antibiotic use – despite the risk of surging antibiotic resistance.
UK-based companies dominate the upper tier rankings and have an average overall score of 41%. Average scores for North America were 12%, and in the Asia Pacific region just 9%, showing a stark contrast between different geographies.