The Alliance team spends a lot of time helping consumer-facing protein brands, as well as our restaurant, retail and foodservice partners, navigate pressure campaigns from animal rights extremist organizations. Pressure campaigns are a frequently employed tactic of extremists pushing for brands to adopt policies for their supply chain under the guise of concern over animal welfare or sustainability.

Beneath the surface, these demands are actually aimed at reducing efficiency and driving up the cost of food in hopes that consumers will have to make tough choices about how much meat, poultry, dairy, eggs and seafood they can afford to feed their families. By raising the cost of animal protein, plant-based options may become more attractive to some consumers, which will aid animal rights organizations in their mission to reduce and ultimately eliminate the use of animals for food.

You can take it directly from them. Extremists have discussed pressure campaigns at activist conferences, stating, “When it is time to launch the campaign, find a vulnerable target, prepare everything for at least a few weeks and then assemble an overwhelming force to utilize from day one. ‘The crueler it is, the quicker the fight is over,’” and “Have faith people want to do good when you provide them an outlet. However, when you don’t get the right reaction be ruthless. Find a way to yes.”

Right now, the key issues we see pressure campaigns focused around are “enforcement” of previous animal welfare commitments on sow housing and cage free eggs (with “enforcement” in major quotation marks because these groups do not have any authority to oversee or enforce anything) and pushing for additional brands to adopt broiler welfare policies. Frequent pressure tactics include social media attacks, online petitions, advertising campaigns, personal calls and emails to senior executives and outreach to investors and/or board members of public companies.

We make a lot of reactive recommendations on managing these campaigns (most importantly, ignore them), but the most important advice we have to give is on how to mitigate their potential influence by proactively defining what animal welfare and sustainability mean to your brand and your stakeholders. By knowing your company’s values and what resonates with your true customers, you can avoid being pushed into making decisions that aren’t scientifically backed and don’t make economic sense because of outside pressure. No matter where you sit on the value chain, if your livelihood involves livestock and poultry, you need to take steps to define your company’s approach to these important topics.

We encourage companies to be in the driver’s seat on animal welfare and sustainability, as these concepts are too important to be driven by groups who aren’t coming to the conversation with positive intentions for the future of animal agriculture and consumer choice. A public-facing statement addressing these topics is key to communicating your company’s commitment and defusing false claims from detractors. This statement should be positive and reflect collaboration throughout the supply chain — avoid repeating any negative claims, even if your goal is to refute them.

A good animal welfare statement should also be consistent — maintain the same level of detail (high level is best) for all of the species involved in your business. As a starting point, consider endorsing existing programs within the animal agriculture community like BQA, PQA or NCC’s animal welfare guidelines. Aligning with these longstanding programs that have been created and continuously updated with the input of various experts helps lend credibility and avoid the need to reinvent the wheel.

The best defense to misinformation is a good offense of proactively demonstrating the animal agriculture community’s commitment to being good stewards of the land, responsible caretakers for livestock and poultry and positive contributors to our communities. Take the opportunity now to make sure you are telling your brand’s sustainability and animal welfare story loudly and proudly.

The best defense is a good offense

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