Pork labelling makes welfare a major marketing factor in Europe

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Welfare certificate targets tail docking, castration without anesthetic and GM feeds

by NORMAN DUNN

In January 2013, a raft of German meat retailers officially adopted a new national label for their products: the "Tierschutz" (Animal Protection) certificate. The rules involved, established by livestock experts at the University of Göttingen together with the German animal welfare union (DTB) and backed by the Ministry of Agriculture, cover the breeding and management, transport and slaughter of swine (and poultry).

The label regulations ban tail docking, for instance, and castration of male piglets must be carried out under anesthetic. The label also aims to phase out feeding of GM products over a three-year period and stipulates nest-making materials for sows before farrowing.

These rules are for the basic Tierschutz label certification. There's a premium (two-star) level certification as well and this bans the use of GM feeds right from the start. Swine reared for this label have to have access to outdoors. In all cases, transport to slaughter must not be more than four hours.

At the launch during Berlin's "Green Week" farm and food show, four of the country's largest supermarket chains announced they would be selling meat under the new label. "As long as people eat meat, they should also be in the position to choose more protection for the animals concerned through transparency and clarity in the way the meat is produced," commented DTB president Andreas Schröder. Schröder added that this protection and transparency will cost the consumers around 20 per cent more.

Will shoppers be prepared to foot the bill? Germany's Minister of Agriculture Ilse Aigner told Green Week visitors that a survey of consumers in Germany had just confirmed that animal welfare in food production was taken very seriously by most, being regarded as more important even than regionality when it came to buying decisions.

The new Tierschutz label joins the already established labels for organically produced pork products in Germany, such as Bioland and Freiland. These have been going for years and often have rearing and management rules similar to the new scheme. Also already well embedded in retail meat outlets is the Westfleisch "Aktion Tierwohl" (animal welfare) label for the pork products it produced from 400,000 swine in 2011 and from possibly as many as a million hogs this year.

Swine producers consigning animals for slaughter and processing for sale under the Westfleisch label must establish a farm-individual veterinary health program for the herd. After 40 kilograms liveweight, no antibiotics may be given to animals. Management rules include a minimum farrowing pen size of 2.25 square metres (national legislation demands 2.05 square metres minimum) and nesting material for each sow a week before farrowing. Washing and worming of sows before moving into their farrowing pens are also required.

Other rules: minimum days to weaning, 28; playthings for all hogs; no castration of male feeders; and maximum transport time to slaughter of not more than three hours or not more than 80 kilometres. Westfleisch is one of the leading European swine processors with a total of over seven million hogs slaughtered from 4,500 farmers in 2011 and a turnover of almost C$3 billion.

Indicating the crucial importance of the welfare factor in European marketing  is the action of VION, the Dutch-based organization right at the top of the European  swine slaughter sector (turnover in 2010: more than $12 billion). This giant joined the German government-supported Tierschutz label immediately in January of this year. Independent inspectors had already been sent to hog farms supplying a VION plant in the north of the country. The slaughterhouse in question has also been inspected and passed as suitable to produce pork products bearing the new label.  

Meanwhile, in Britain, all leading supermarkets have established welfare-based pork labels for British-reared and processed meat. These labels nearly all stipulate that meat must also come from hogs guaranteed to have more space than the legal minimum and with straw or other litter on at least part of pen flooring. For example, under the quality pork label of Sainsbury's (number three supermarket chain in the U.K. with 1,021 outlets, 16.5 per cent of the market in this sector and a turnover in 2011 of $33.4 billion), a 100-kilogram feeder must have a pen space of 0.8 square metres of which 0.53 square metres has to be bedded with straw or other litter.

Sainsbury's, which uses the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) "Freedom Foods"  program as the guideline for its label, requires that a sow be kept in a conventional farrowing crate for no longer than five days after farrowing. Another Sainsbury's rule for its pork: no piglet weaning before 21 days of age. Waitrose, the sixth largest food retailer in the U.K., only sells meat from swine that have been reared outdoors for at least part of their lives and 20 per cent of the pork sold off its shelves is from animals that spend their entire lives from piglet to slaughter on outside systems.

On the European mainland, the new wave of welfare labels is, initially, being welcomed. But Germany in particular is renowned for the "buy on price only" mentality of its consumers. If the Minister of Agriculture in Berlin is wrong and this philosophy reasserts itself, then the new national welfare label could have a fairly short life. BP