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What is BBFAW?
The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) publicly ranks the world’s leading food companies on their farm animal welfare management, policy commitment, performance and disclosure based on publicly available information.
It enables investors, companies, NGOs and other stakeholders to understand corporate practice and performance on farm animal welfare, and it drives – directly and through the efforts of others – corporate improvements in the welfare of animals reared for food.
The Benchmark allows leading food companies to be recognised for making farm animal welfare a critical business issue and for reporting and improving upon it year on year.
2023 Benchmark Results
The 2023 Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare was launched on 25 April 2024 and sets a new baseline for animal welfare improvement.
A total of 150 global food producers, retailers and food-service companies with combined revenues of more than US$4.9 trillion, including the likes of McDonalds, Tesco and Tyson Foods, were ranked by BBFAW.
In 2023, the Benchmark introduced tougher assessment criteria and an increased focus on ‘Performance Impact’ - measuring how well companies are delivering on their welfare commitments. It also included a new section on how companies are recognising the need to reduce reliance on animal sourced foods and diversify into alternative proteins.
Encouraging signs
This year’s benchmark found several encouraging signs as it set a new baseline for corporate performance, including:
- 95% of global food companies now recognise ‘farm animal welfare’ as a core business issue (up from 79% in 2012)
- The highest ranked companies achieving ‘Tier 2’ status were Marks & Spencer, Premier Foods and Waitrose, demonstrating their leadership in making farm animal welfare integral to their business strategy.
- The highest scoring companies on ‘Performance Impact’ achieving a ‘C’ rating included: Marks & Spencer (UK), Groupe Danone (FR), Premier Foods (UK), Waitrose (UK), Cranswick PLC (UK) and Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund (Switzerland).
- There are generally high levels of ambition on cage-free eggs, with 73% of the 141 companies that have eggs in their supply chains now having cage-free egg commitments.
- 25% of companies recognise the need to reduce reliance on animal sourced foods and diversify into alternative proteins as a relevant business issue, with 21 companies including Greggs, Sodexo and Carrefour publishing time-bound targets.
More to be done
Many findings in this year’s benchmark also showed the work that still needs to be done by the food sector:
- Implementation lags commitment: 93% of companies rated as ‘E’ or ‘F’ on ‘Performance Impact’, and no company achieved the top ‘A’ or ‘B’ rating.
- No policy: 19 global food companies, including Yum China Holdings (owners of KFC in China) and Domino’s Pizza Inc (US), have yet to even publish a formal farm animal welfare policy.
- Close confinement:
- 18% of companies, including Tyson Foods and WH Group (which includes large US pork producer Smithfield) have no policy commitment to end the use of close confinement.
- Only 9% of companies with pigs in their supply chain (13 of 137 companies) have set credible targets to end the use of ‘sow stalls’ or ‘farrowing/gestation crates’.
- Routine mutilation - A majority of companies (52%) have no policy to manage routine mutilations - such as branding with hot irons or tail docking in pigs and cattle.
- Live transport: Only 27% of assessed companies report that live transportation of farm animals is restricted to short journeys only (i.e. 4 hours or less for poultry and rabbits, and 8 hours for other species).
- Antibiotics: Only 40% of companies have commitments in place to end prophylactic and routine metaphylactic antibiotic use – despite the risk of surging antibiotic resistance.
BBFAW is supported by a coalition of institutional investors, managing over $2.3 trillion in assets who will engage with the companies in the year ahead to help drive further improvements.
