Last month, the 2021 edition of the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare was released. The BBFAW is produced by two animal rights extremist organizations: Compassion in World Farming and Four Paws. The report is billed as “a tool that enables investors to understand how companies are managing farm animal welfare within their operations and supply chains.” It ranks restaurant, retail and foodservice brands into various tiers based on an assessment of their animal welfare policies.

From my read, the objective is to get investor and media attention to attempt to pressure companies falling into the lower tiers to change their sourcing policies to better align with the scorecard.

While the report is represented as animal-welfare focused, you don’t have to read all 69 pages of it to see the true endgame. This year’s foreword states that CIWF and Four Paws want to “end factory farming and change the food system in a sustainable way” through three strategies: “a significant reduction in the number of animals raised for food” (at least 50% reduction globally), making sure that animals raised for food experience “positive animal welfare states” and “replacing animal-based products with plant-based alternatives.”

The foreword also references “substantial changes” coming to the structure and content of future BBFAW reports, including a “evaluating companies on their meat and dairy reduction commitments and performance.” Obviously the only way for companies to score well on future assessments will be to align themselves with CIWF and Four Paws’ true objective: ending animal agriculture and taking meat, poultry, dairy and eggs off of their shelves and menus.

Animal welfare is a critical priority for the animal agriculture community, and I know our restaurant, retail and foodservice partners share that value. If any companies are feeling any pressure to make certain policies as a result of this report, I’d encourage them to look to their suppliers as key partners in any animal welfare conversations, along with the Alliance and our members. From our perspective, animal welfare decisions are much too important to be made in response to activist campaigns and influenced by groups with a different agenda entirely.

Latest “Business Benchmark” report makes true intentions clear

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