Newest grocery label: ‘Humane’
American shoppers face an array of labels in their grocery stores, most designed to help them make healthful choices. Soon they’ll see yet another label — this one concerning the treatment of animals in the food chain.
“There’s organic, there’s fair trade, but ‘humane’ is the next big thing,” said Phil Lempert, a supermarket and consumer behavior analyst. “We ask shoppers what they’re looking for, and that’s what they’re telling us.”
The increasing consumer demand, though, has already touched off a controversy over labeling standards for meat and eggs — and resulted in charges that some producers have misrepresented their products and practices.
The process of crafting clear and meaningful standards, Lempert said, could get contentious.
“It’s going to be very political,” he said. “I also think it’s going to be much more expensive. It might increase prices 20, 30, 40, 50%. But you’ve got people who will pay more for the label.”
Three major supermarket chains — Whole Foods Market Inc., Supervalu Inc. and Safeway Inc. — have pledged to boost their animal-welfare standards and to inform shoppers about their efforts with new labels or in-store signs. The move comes after recent research shows that consumers rank animal welfare high on their list of concerns.
A study by the Chicago food industry research firm Technomic revealed that more than half of consumers believe animal welfare is among the most important social issues in the food business. A survey financed by the American Farm Bureau Federation showed that 89% of consumers believe companies that require farmers to improve animal care “are doing the right thing.”
Whole Foods is launching a program developed by a group called the Global Animal Partnership that will rate products on a scale of 1 to 5 based on their animal-welfare standards.
The partnership — a Washington nonprofit made up of farmers, animal-welfare advocates, scientists and retailers — has developed a progressive “step” system that rates pork, chicken and beef from producers that choose to participate in the program. For example, a steak would earn a “step 1” rating if the animal spent two-thirds of its life on pasture or rangeland, but a 5 if it spent its entire life on pasture or rangeland.
Chicken producers can an earn a 3 or 4 if they provide their birds with two or more “enrichments,” such as hay bales or whole grains, and a 5 if they have fewer than 500 birds or if they provide perches. The program requires, among other things, that producers be able to trace an animal through its life, from youth to slaughter, and prohibits the routine use of antibiotics.
Although some of the program requirements dovetail with those of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s organic program, advocates say the program goes beyond the government standards. The “USDA Organic” label, for example, also prohibits antibiotics, but critics accuse big producers of exploiting vague language in the law and violating certain organic principles, especially one requiring that animals have access to pasture. Some believe such practices have undermined consumer confidence in the organic label.
“There’s been so much controversy about what organics are,” Lempert said. Shoppers “want to know specifics.”
Smart-phone apps have given shoppers better tools. “Consumers … can find out about a product with their phone, just standing in front of it,” Lempert said.
The Global Animal Partnership is one of a handful of humane-certification programs, adding to a sometimes confusing label landscape. Because there’s no government standard for “humane,” companies are now free to classify products by their own definition.
On meat products, shoppers also may see “Animal Welfare Approved” or “Certified Humane,” which are run by different organizations, and like the partnership, use third-party certifiers. Egg cartons also can bear labels saying “Food Alliance Certified,” “United Egg Producers Certified” and “American Humane Certified,” although the latter two programs allow birds to be in small cages.
“These are industry attempts to essentially put a label on a product to give consumers a false assurance that the animals are well-treated,” said Paul Shapiro, a spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States.
The livestock industry has chafed at some of the third-party certification programs. Some of the requirements, critics say, are impractical or unrealistic.
“It has really caught us off guard that groups might attack our lifestyle, indirectly or directly, and tell us how to raise our animals,” said Dan Thomson, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University.
Both the livestock industry and animal-advocacy groups say the most important thing for consumers is to come up with a single standard.
“We need one set of standards, so we remove the marketing of animal welfare in the grocery store,” Thomson said. “Because it’s not fair to the animals, the producers or the consumers.”
