By Cat Holmes
University of Georgia
When singer Paul McCartney wrote a letter to fast food chain
KFC in late July urging the company to ensure better treatment
for the chickens it serves, it was just the latest media event
in an animal welfare trend that University of Georgia animal
behaviorist Bruce Webster has been watching unfold for years.
“The issue of animal welfare has been around since the 1960s
but until recently the U.S. meat and poultry industries were
fairly unaware of it,” said Webster, a poultry scientist with
the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Public pressure in Britain and Canada came to bear on the
industry sooner than in the United States, he said, and “except
for oddballs like me, few scientists here paid attention to
this issue until recently.”
The big change, Webster said, is public awareness.
“Animal rights and welfare activists have captured the public’s
attention,” he said.
Although they’ve sometimes used smear campaigns, gross
exaggerations or even untruths to do so, Webster said the idea
that agricultural animals shouldn’t suffer unnecessarily has
been commonly accepted.
It’s all about who makes the most noise.
“The louder groups get more attention and effect change,”
Webster said.
When animal welfare activists turn their attention to
McDonald’s, Burger King or Wendy’s, these companies have to
convince the public that they are responsible corporate
citizens. Even, Webster pointed out, if they aren’t directly
responsible.
After all, fast food restaurants don’t produce chickens.
“They are just purchasers of product,” he said. “They didn’t
want to think about these issues particularly but they were
forced to think about them.”
Many fast food chains, including McDonald’s and Wendy’s, have
formed their own animal welfare advisory boards. Webster has
worked with both Wendy’s and KFC, both in an advisory capacity
and by performing audits on poultry companies when requested.
Other chain restaurant companies are doing audits as well, he
said.
“They don’t need public image problems,” said Webster.
In 2000, when McDonald’s Corporation began to require that
their poultry suppliers use larger cages and phase out beak
trimming, it used the issue to boost its image as a responsible
corporate citizen.
The issue now facing the poultry industry is to determine a
national standard.
“Since there is a huge array of companies that sell poultry
products in the United States, the work now is to standardize
the standards,” Webster said.
Many suppliers and purchasers in the poultry industry have
recognized the need for unified animal welfare standards and
are working together to develop industry criteria.
“This has produced a voluntary movement, unique to the U.S. in
that it’s almost purely market driven,” Webster said.
The United Egg Producers is currently at the forefront of the
poultry industry, said Webster.
“Last year [UEP] offered a certification program with audits
and time lines that producers could follow,” he said. “The
National Chicken Council (NCC) is developing a similar
program.”
On the purchaser side of the fence, the National Council of
Chain Restaurants and the Food Marketing Institute have
developed the Animal Welfare Audit Program (AWAP). Audits are
currently available for non-poultry slaughter (cattle, swine,
lamb, etc.); chicken slaughter; egg production; chicken
production and dairy production. Turkey slaughter and
production, hog production, and feedlot audits are under
development.
For Webster, addressing the issue of animal welfare is the
latest phase of the evolution of an industry.
“The way we handle food animals has changed dramatically since
World War II,” he said. “Essentially, federal and state
governments and the electorate have strongly encouraged
productivity. It’s been a society-wide effort and industry has
responded and succeeded. Working animal welfare reform into
that system is the new goal.”
Cat Holmes is a news editor with the University of Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
