Woolworths backs down on association with animal welfare benchmark

Woolworths has watered down its association with an organisation that wants to halve the number of animals farmed for food

Australia’s largest supermarket has distanced itself from a global benchmark set up by two UK-based animal welfare organisations that want to end factory farming and halve livestock production by 2040.

Woolworths has removed a swath of information on its website about its alignment to the Business Benchmark for Farm Animal Welfare, after the relationship was revealed last week by The Weekly Times.

The benchmark was set up and is financially supported by animal welfare organisations Compassion in World Farming and Four Paws, which are calling for a “significant reduction” in the number of animals farmed for food — “aiming for at least a 50 per cent reduction by 2040 globally”. They have also called for an end to factory farming, which they describe as “the biggest cause of animal cruelty on the planet” and “a key driver of climate change and the collapse of nature”.

Woolworths’ previous animal welfare statement on its website read: “We have aligned our policy and standards with Compassion in World Farming and we are working towards a Tier 1 Score on the BBFAW … We have worked closely with Compassion in World Farming, World Animal Protection and other animal welfare organisations to improve our internationally recognised BBFAW score”.

It continued to explain its climb from a Tier 3 to a Tier 2 ranking, and its ambition to “achieve Tier 1 by 2025 which is outlined in our sustainability plan”.

Compassion in World Farming wants to halve livestock production by 2040. AAP IMAGE/DAVE HUNT

Woolworths’ website has since been updated to a single line referencing the benchmark.

“To validate our performance and hold ourselves to account, we aim to achieve the highest tier in the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare,” it reads.

The change comes just days after the peak body representing the grass-fed cattle industry, Cattle Australia, urged Woolworths to “reconsider” its alignment with the BBFAW, which it described as “a group publicly recognised as animal activists and strong advocates against factory farming such as dairies and feedlots”.

A Cattle Australia spokesman said the organisation was also concerned the benchmark called out routine cattle management functions such as castration as “routine mutilations”.

A Woolworths spokesman said the business’s position hadn’t changed.

“As always, we welcome any opportunity to join industry discussions and work collaboratively on animal welfare,” the spokeswoman said.

“As we’ve said previously, we will be reviewing our use of the Business Benchmark for Farm Animal Welfare to measure our performance against other retailers, following a range of changes to its assessment criteria.”

A pig producer, who did not want to be named for fear of retribution, said she took issue with the retailers’ alignment to BBFAW because the welfare standards the supermarkets requested of their suppliers to climb its rankings applied only to Australian producers, despite the majority of ham and bacon sold in Australia coming from overseas, mostly from the US.

“They don’t make our importers do it, and I think that’s picking on the Aussie farmer,” she said. “All our fresh pork comes from a sow stall-free environment, (but) the US and Canadian producers still use gestation stalls, and they’re still very common in Europe.”

She described any relationship to the benchmark as “animal-welfare washing”. Similar to greenwashing, it was being used to lead consumers into thinking the company was concerned about animal welfare, when in fact this only extended to Australian-made products.