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Published 05/12/2018
Today, leading French retailer, Casino Group, launched the first animal welfare labelling scheme in France, in partnership with Compassion. The aim of the new label is to help consumers identify higher welfare products more easily and increase the uptake of higher welfare purchasing.
Compassion has been working closely with Casino and its partners (French animal welfare NGOs, LFDA and OABA) for almost two years, to develop a list of animal welfare indicators, as well as a scoring system for the new scheme.
The criteria behind the label is based on 230 animal welfare indicators (which are all verified by third-party auditing), that cover all phases of an animal’s life: birth, rearing, transport and slaughter.
The label displays four grades (A, B, C and D), with grade A, B and C guaranteeing a higher welfare standard. The label has been launched on chicken products initially, but is destined to be rolled out to other brands and species in due course.
Tina Schuler, General Director at Casino said: “The first products have been labelled and will be available in Casino supermarkets in December. Consumers will have access to clear information about the welfare attributes of all of our Casino “Terre & Saveurs” fresh chicken meat.”
Compassion hopes the welfare labelling scheme will be rolled out nationally and has the potential to be adopted across Europe in the future.
Amélie Legrand, Senior Food Business Manager at Compassion said: “This new label is all about transparency. It will undoubtedly make it easier for consumers to make higher welfare choices when they are out shopping and support those farmers that are committed to higher welfare production.
Compassion was delighted to be part of this ambitious and pioneering initiative - the first of its kind in France.”
