Compassion celebrates 2022 award winners

Planet Friendly Award 2022

Compass Group (UK & IRE) received our first full Planet Friendly Award, achieving a GOLD level for a 2025 commitment to reduce its animal-sourced proteins by 25%.

They are truly leading the way, tackling head-on the issues of farm animal welfare, protein diversification/meat reduction and a shift towards regenerative agriculture, providing an excellent example for others to follow.

They have a 2025 global cage-free egg commitment and Better Chicken Commitments in the US and Europe which are raising baseline standards for poultry.

Their Net Zero plan published in May 2021 includes a commitment to switch from animal-sourced proteins to 40% plant-based by 2030 (and at least 25% by 2025), and an additional pledge that 70% of their top five food categories will be sourced from regenerative agriculture by 2030.

Successfully reducing our reliance on animal protein is essential for Compass if we are to deliver on our commitment to reach Climate Net-Zero by 2030. To be recognised by Compassion in World Farming is to the credit of all those working so hard across the business in pursuit of a just transition.

Carolyn Ball, Director for Delivery of Net Zero at Compass Group

Sustainable Food and Farming Award 2022

Hilltribe Organics Ltd (HTO) is a high-impact social enterprise formed to sustain rural farming villages in Thailand through organic and regenerative agriculture.

HTO’s successful business model, which addresses more than two-thirds of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, involves every aspect of the value chain. It not only helps farmers – many of them women - get into production by supplying the hens and feed, but also helps market the organic eggs to consumers and retailers. This provides a regular income and financial stability for the hill tribe people.

By driving the organic egg market, HTO has helped to significantly reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (down by 70% and 80% respectively) leading to cleaner soil, water, and air.

In addition, HTO promotes reforestation and rewilding, utilising local agro-ecological conditions to the full. The hens are raised in the hills with plenty of access to trees and shelter; there is no use of antibiotics and they grow turmeric to improve hens’ immune systems.

This social enterprise is truly inspirational and provides a successful business model which could be scaled up and adopted in other parts of the world.

We have always believed in the highest animal welfare and the most sustainable and organic farming practices and that they can benefit both the environment and the hill tribe people while supporting a successful business model. We are gratified to see the HTO model is even starting to attract farmer family children back to the hills.

Our farms require relatively little land compared to other agricultural uses and helps protect wildlife habitats in the areas around our farms. This award will help us continue to improve the lives of hill tribe people, to increase the market for organics (further reducing the use of chemical fertilisers/pesticides) and to strengthen the model to the point where we can expand to new markets.

Co-Founder and CEO of HTO, Richard Blossom

Sustainable Food and Farming Award 2022

French dairy company Laiteries H.Triballat-Rians picked up this year’s corporate Sustainable Food and Farming Award for their ‘Sustainable livestock farming’ project.

They have encouraged the development of pasture access for 100% of their farms (they work with 450 producers) and have worked towards increasing the longevity of the cows and goats in their supply.

They are also phasing out deforesting soy in feed and are planting up to 40km of new hedges. This work was judged as a good example of how a dairy group can help its farmers adopt better animal welfare, environmental protection and sustainable farming measures.

In order to promote sustainable practices from the field to the plate, we have co-constructed our commitments for sustainable and responsible farming with the 9 producer organisations representing the 450 affiliated milk producers, as well as with NGOs, notably Compassion in World Farming.

This "Sustainable Food & Farming Award” is proof of our collective actions and commitments to animal welfare and a more sustainable model. It also encourages us to continue our efforts!

It is together, through regular exchanges with milk producers, working groups with experts and monitoring the progress made, that these commitments to sustainable livestock farming will succeed.

Henri Triballat, Director of Milk Production at Laiteries H. Triballat Rians

Good Egg Commendation & Best Retailer Marketing Award 2022

Carrefour became the very first retailer to be awarded in Brazil this year. They were awarded not only a Good Egg Commendation for their own-brand cage-free egg commitment but also the Best Retailer Marketing Award for their in-store marketing campaign educating consumers on the concept of cage-free eggs.

Using in-store posters and radio, Carrefour is supporting their commitment to have 100% cage free own-brand eggs by the end of 2025 by taking consumers on the journey with them. This is an important undertaking in a region where price points on cheap protein make all the difference and most consumers opt for the cheapest option. By teaching consumers about the welfare impacts of caged systems, Carrefour Brazil hopes to shift popular choice towards cage-free eggs instead.

If successful, this move will have a huge impact on the lives of millions of hens in a country where most eggs currently come from caged systems. No other Brazilian retailer has done this type of communication before with that level of detail, and as they intend to roll out the communication to other stores in Brazil this will undoubtedly bolster the cage-free move in that region.

In its ambition to lead the food transition, Grupo Carrefour Brazil is committed not only to offer products with higher quality, but also to ensure that the animals from which the products are coming are treated well. That is why we became the first food retailer in Brazil that took the commitment to commercialise only cage-free eggs by 2025 for our own brands.

We are very proud today to receive these two prizes, the Best Retailer Marketing Award, and the Good Egg Commendation. In the Brazilian market, driven by price due to social inequalities, we face many challenges, and it is essential to include all stakeholders to achieve real change. These awards will certainly help us to strengthen these changes, showing that it is possible to offer sustainable products at a fair price.

Lucio Vicente, Head of Corporate affairs and sustainability at Group Carrefour Brazil

Best Retailer Innovation & Best Retailer Award 2022

The Best Retailer Innovation Award went to Waitrose & Partners for developing the first Qualitative Behavioural Assessment App to measure the emotional wellbeing of animals in the drive to continually improve their quality of life.

Working in conjunction with Scotland’s Rural College team led by Professor Francoise Wemelsfelder, this pioneering app assesses ‘how’ animals behave (for example are they happy/active or flat/stressed), and is being rolled out across their entire supply chain.

Waitrose applies a ‘Good Quality of Life’ approach to the animals within its supply chain, measuring and improving key outcomes of good housing, good feeding, good health, appropriate behaviour, and positive mental state. The first three areas have been easy to measure and understand for some time, but the last two have proven much more difficult to measure, interpret and assess. The QBA app has transformed this, and Waitrose can now monitor the mental well-being of all the animals in their supply chain. Once fully tested by Waitrose, the QBA App will be made accessible to other companies for the future benefit of all animals.

Waitrose’s constant aspiration to be the best and to do what is right for animals and for their customers makes them true leaders in farm animal welfare and this year they also received the overall Best Retailer Award for achieving the highest score in the 2022 Supermarket Survey

We are delighted to have once again received these awards, particularly to have held onto our status as a leading supermarket in animal welfare since 2004 and winner of the Best Retailer Award four consecutive times in a row.

It takes enormous passion, commitment and hard work to achieve the high standards we've maintained for the past 30 years. This is unquestionably a direct result of the longstanding and close relationships we've built with our farmers over multiple decades and without their loyalty and dedication, these accolades would simply not be possible.

Jake Pickering, Senior Agriculture Manager, Waitrose & Partners

Cage-Free Award 2022

Domino Pizza Enterprize received this year’s prestigious Cage Free Award in recognition of the work they are doing to end the use of ALL cages across ALL species in their European supply chain.

Working in partnership with Compassion, Domino’s Pizza Enterprise is developing better welfare standards for all the animal-based ingredients on their menu, as well as increasing their plant-based offer.

Domino's, which operates in six European countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Luxembourg), has already committed to go free-range on their shell eggs and egg products and ingredients by 2025.

In 2020, the brand joined the Better Chicken Commitment for their European supply chain and extended this commitment to their operations in Australia and New Zealand in 2021.

They are now furthering their welfare commitments by developing higher welfare standards for pigs and sows under the ‘Domino’s Pork Commitment’.

The chain wants to meet its ambitious criteria, which includes a ban on the use of both farrowing crates and individual sow stalls, for 100% of their pig supply chain by 2026 and they hope to inspire other companies in Europe to follow their lead.

Together with our suppliers and partner CIWF, we strive for higher animal welfare standards for all our protein. To achieve that goal, a long-term relationship with our suppliers is important. It’s not always the easiest way, but we are committed to do the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do.

We are therefore very honoured to receive the Cage-Free Award. Winning this Award is a great reward and recognition for us as a company and for our suppliers.

Maria Oehler, Head of Partnerships Europe at Domino’s

Rabbit Innovation Award 2022

BreFood in Germany - with producers who are leading the way in cage-free rabbit production in China – received a Rabbit Innovation Award for their innovative cage-free rabbit rearing systems with permanent access to wintergardens, where rabbits have the choice to go outside in an enriched outdoor patio area to enjoy fresh air and sunlight.

For more than a decade, rabbit welfare has been at the center of our business model. As early as 2012, we have worked with universities, certification institutes and animal welfare organizations such as Four Paws and CIWF to introduce a ground-reared keeping system that restored the trust of the consumers and the industry when it came to rabbit meat.

Today, as the market leader in Germany, we work with almost all the major retailers to provide customers with high-quality meat raised in an animal-friendly way. To this day, our Rabbit Care standard is the role model in the market.

But we also see it as our responsibility to be leading the way and keep raising the bar. With our new Rabbit Care Premium keeping system, we’ve worked with our long-term partner in China to provide our rabbits with permanent access to generous outdoor areas, where they can enjoy fresh air and sunlight at their convenience. A keeping system of this kind and at this scale is one-of-a-kind at the moment. We are proud to be partnering with retailers who are just as passionate about animal welfare as we are, putting it in the center of our joint business practices

Petar Perkovic from BreFood s

Rabbit Innovation Award 2022

Wisium in France is a brand of ADM, a leading international company specialising in animal feed and nutrition. Over the past few years, Wisium has developed an innovative cage-free rabbit rearing system called LAPETY WELLAP

Rabbits are reared in large pens with permanent access to a winter garden, and are provided with increased space allowance, natural light, and enrichment such as platforms, hiding places and gnawing materials.

Wisium, the leading service company in animal nutrition, is very pleased to receive its 3rd Innovation Trophy for this new alternative to the cage: WELLAP. This concept is based on the nutrition and ethology of rabbits on the ground and is accompanied by services for the implementation of new projects for breeders who wish to meet societal expectations in terms of animal welfare.

This trophy is recognition of the relevance of WELLAP for the general public and of its ability to respond to changes in citizens and consumers. A big thank you to CIWF for crowning this major innovation for the rabbit farming profession!

Chantal Davoust, Rabbit Manager for Wisium