Fast-food failures: Chicken welfare report finds restaurant giants unprepared for Europe’s new rules

29 Nov 2023 --- European fast-food leaders are largely stalling on broiler chicken welfare standards, according to a new report from World Animal Protection. McDonald’s, Burger King and Starbucks are among the chains with “very poor” performance on chicken welfare management and reporting in several countries.

These quick-service restaurants failed to respond to us when asked if they agree with their rating, what actions they are taking to manage broiler chicken welfare and to what extent they are prepared for The European Chicken Commitment (ECC) in 2026.

The ECC is a set of minimum requirements designed to cost-efficiently improve the welfare of chickens. While there are no penalties associated with this commitment, companies that fail to meet the requirements risk their brand reputation and financial backing, warns Michelle Baxter Wickham, private sector engagement manager at World Animal Protection.

“Civil society organizations are keen to support companies in achieving the ECC, but we also have a duty to hold them to account if they fail to commit to improving chicken welfare or implement this commitment throughout their supply chain,” she tells Food Ingredients First.

“There are currently around 375 companies committed to the ECC, and we can assume that as more companies commit, the lower production costs will be across the board. The report shows that some companies are already making progress toward implementing their commitments — albeit slower than expected — indicating that improving broiler chicken welfare is feasible from a business perspective.”Fast-food restaurants that fail to meet Europe’s incoming chicken welfare rules risk alienating consumers.

The pecking order
The Pecking Order report analyzed 69 companies across France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and Spain on their commitment to addressing chicken welfare throughout their supply chains and how much progress they are making toward the ECC.

While the overall score for the fast-food companies assessed in France has improved, Germany, Spain and Italy have shown slight reductions in their overall company scores. Poland and Romania have overall scores that are significantly lower than the other markets assessed.

“It’s unsurprising that Poland and Romania are behind, as organizations there have been focused on securing cage-free egg policies and only recently started to engage companies on the ECC.”

Each year, over 7 billion broiler chickens are reportedly killed for consumption in the EU. Some 95% of the broiler chickens currently reared on factory farms are fast-growing and selectively bred to reach slaughter weight in just five to six weeks. Their growth rate has a huge impact on their health and welfare.

The report results show that only 49% of the companies analyzed have published a broiler chicken welfare policy demonstrating alignment with some or all of the ECC criteria, with 51% having no commitments on the topic at all.

An overwhelming 90% of companies analyzed are ranked in the lowest scoring tier on progress reporting, having published very little or nothing on broiler chicken welfare issues.

Climate change excuses?
In World Animal Protection’s press release, Dirk Verdonk, director at the NGO’s Netherlands branch, accused fast-food giants of ignoring animal suffering, greenwashing and hiding behind “misguided excuses about climate footprints and affordability.”

World Animal Protection’s 2019 report, “Valuing higher welfare chicken: Making the financial case for more humane chicken production,” found that transitioning from conventional chicken production to higher welfare systems incurred minimal cost — and far below previous industry speculation.With the ECC implementation just a few years away, only 10% of companies analyzed in the report have published progress reports on broiler chicken welfare.

This year, Eurogroup for Animals produced a factsheet on the “Economics of slow growing broilers,” showing that production costs associated with the ECC criteria were 18-19% higher on average, depending on the country.

For Baxter Wickham, companies are rightly prioritizing their climate commitments but wrongly assuming that targets are at odds with animal welfare. “These topics cannot be considered in isolation, as one impacts the other,” she notes.

World Animal Protection released a report in 2022, “Climate change and cruelty: Revealing the true impact of factory farming,” which evaluated the climate and environmental impacts of chicken and pork production in the world’s four biggest factory farming hotspots — Brazil, China, the Netherlands and the US.

“The research found that the majority of climate and environmental impacts in animal agriculture come from the production of crops grown to feed farmed animals. While higher welfare pork production leads to slightly less impact than conventional methods, in meat chicken production, the impacts are slightly more,” explains Baxter Wickham.

“This result is due to the use of slower-growing breeds who live longer and therefore require more food, compared to the current fast-growing breeds engineered for efficiency and who experience significant health and welfare issues as a direct result.”

“Companies must adopt a holistic approach to sustainability, which encompasses animal welfare and land use change, biodiversity loss and climate, which are all negatively impacted by intensive animal agriculture.”

In better news for animal welfare reform, the European Parliament approved the EU-New Zealand free trade agreement last week, marking the first time the EU has ratified a trade deal limiting market access based on animal welfare standards.

By Joshua Poole

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