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What is BBFAW?
Established in 2012, the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) is the globally recognised investor framework for evaluating the farm animal welfare policies, management, performance, and transparency of 150 leading food companies.
Companies are assessed, using publicly available information, on their approach to managing farm animal welfare in five key areas:
- Policy Commitments
- Governance and Management
- Targets
- Performance Impact
- Reducing the Reliance on Animal Sourced Foods
Companies are evaluated against 51 criteria within these categories and ranked into six tiers based on their scores.
BBFAW's Impact Rating grades companies (from 'A' to 'F') on their tangible welfare impacts, for example, the percentage of cage-free laying hens in a company's supply chain.
BBFAW helps investors, companies, NGOs and other stakeholders understand corporate practices and performance on farm animal welfare. It aims to drive continuous improvements in the welfare of animals reared for food.
BBFAW also enables leading food companies to be recognised for prioritising farm animal welfare in their supply chains and for reporting and improving upon it year-on-year.
2024 Benchmark Results
The 2024 Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare was launched on 27 April 2025, revealing steady progress on farm animal welfare across the global food industry. Average overall scores across all companies rose one percentage point for the second consecutive year.
This year’s results are the second since BBFAW introduced more stringent criteria that put a greater focus on companies’ welfare performance and approach to reducing their reliance on animal sourced food.
ANIMAL WELFARE PROGRESS
The latest report reveals that 14 companies have moved up the tier ranking, with nine increasing their overall average score by five per cent or more.
- Greggs, Marks & Spencer, Premier Foods and Waitrose were among the top performers reaching ‘Tier 2’, by achieving a score of between 62-80% against all BBFAW criteria.
- Three companies (Fonterra, Marks & Spencer, Premier Foods) achieved a high ‘B’ Impact Rating which assesses whether companies are delivering meaningful welfare improvements, for example, the proportion of pigs free from tail docking in their supply chain.
- In total, 14 companies increased their Impact Rating in 2024. 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’).
- 43 companies (29%) acknowledge the need to reduce reliance on animal-sourced foods (a rise from 25% in 2023). Two companies - Waitrose and Hilton Food Group - scored 85% for this set of questions compared to an average of just 11%
MORE FOOD INDUSTRY ACTION NEEDED
However, the majority of food companies (118 out of 150) remain in BBFAW’s bottom two tiers (Tiers 5 and 6), meaning they provide limited or no evidence that they have policies or processes in place to manage farm animal welfare effectively.
- 22 companies (15%) have still not published a formal overarching animal welfare policy.
- A large majority of benchmarked companies (91%) score the lowest ‘Impact Rating’ grades (‘E’ or ‘F’), meaning they have yet to show they are delivering improved welfare impacts for farm animals in their supply chains.
- Only 42% of companies have commitments in place to end prophylactic and routine metaphylactic antibiotic use – despite the risk of surging antibiotic resistance.
Explore further highlights by sector, species, and geography and read the full report below.
