Hi, everyone.
Thank you very much for the introduction.
Today, I'm gonna be presenting on how corporate
reforms is changing the landscape for animals.
But before I do, I'm just gonna give you a
little bit of background about The Humane
League.
The Humane League was founded back in 2005
in Philadelphia, started off very much as
a grassroots activists' organization, just
a couple of people.
We've now grown to over 80 staff.
We are now in other countries.
In Mexico, we have a team.
We have a team here in the UK.
We've been here in the UK for a couple of
years now.
We're recently registered as a charity.
We're also based in Japan, which is the hub
for many food businesses in Asia.
Four or five years ago now, the Humane League
honed in on working on getting hens out of
cages.
It was this work with corporate, getting corporate
commitments that's been working towards making
change for hens.
Other organizations have been doing more positive
outreach.
Then we took the approach that we would have
discussions with companies, but, if those
discussions didn't work in getting any kind
of commitment, we would launch campaigns against
these companies to get them to make these
commitments to end cages for hens by 2025.
We, along with a number of organizations,
such as Mercy For Animals, Animal Equality,
HSUS, to name a few in the US, have been working
on this.
In doing so, we've got over 300 companies
in the US to commit to go cage-free by 2025.
A similar approach has been taken here in
Europe.
A number of organizations; Open Cages, L214,
ourselves here in the UK.
Compassion in World Farming have been working
a lot in the UK prior to us coming in 2016,
have been making progress to get commitments
for cage-free.
Now, here in the UK, all major companies have
committed to go cage-free.
This is the battery cage.
This is what we're talking about.
We're talking about cages.
Here, in Europe, we banned this in 2012.
However, in other countries, pretty much around
the world, this is the system that hens will
spend their lives.
That's for a year and a half.
They'll be in these systems.
There is no more space than an iPad for them
to live.
They can't spread their wings.
They are only given food and water.
In Europe, we banned this in 2012 and moved
to the enriched cage.
Now the enriched cage was meant to be a step
up and, in some ways, there is a degree of
improvement.
The birds have small area where they can lay
their eggs.
You can see the orange flaps.
That's where they'd be able to put up, where
they want to lay their eggs because they prefer
to be in a dark, enclosed space.
That's not quite what that is, but it is better
than the barren cage.
They want to perch up high at night to feel
safe.
They provided some perches.
Unfortunately, those perches are about this
far off the ground of the cage.
They're on a wire cage their entire time.
There's a small scratching area.
Again, they can't really do dust bathing or
foraging in that properly.
That's why we pushed for the cage-free.
Now, this is a more intensive system and what
these systems look like typically.
These barn systems do provide more for the
hens.
They're free to move around the system, move
around the barn.
They have litter on the floor for which they
can dust-bathe and forage.
They have perches, which they can perch up
high at night.
You can't see here, but then inside, there's
nest boxes.
They are dark so they can have a secluded
place to lay their eggs.
As we go through the welfare potential of
systems, of course, free-range would be the
highest welfare potential, allowing those
birds outside to forage even more naturally
and to have natural light, et cetera.
Through these approaches, we've been working
with other organizations to get major companies
to make commitments.
That includes Compass, which is major food
service company.
People like Kellogg's and manufacturers, all
the major fast food chains, and also the supermarkets.
Thees commitments aren't just in one country.
These commitments span both Europe and, in
some case, globally.
How do we know this approach is working?
Well, this is Chad Gregory.
Chad is president of UEP, United Egg Producers.
He helpfully told us that, "They're the ones
that are driving this.
There is no question about it.
Chaos, market disruption, and just complete
lack of control."
There we are.
We can also look at the figures.
What we're seeing is, if you look back in
2010, before this corporate campaigning happened,
the numbers are really stagnant, going up
very little every year.
In 2010, we had 4.4%.
Now, we look to 2017, and we're at 15.6% of
hens in cage-free systems.
Actually, USDA reporting this month on month,
we're actually up to 17.9% last month.
So we're actually beginning to see change
happening right now in real time.
Here, this is the UK.
There's been a lag period for a while between
2012 and 2016, where there really hasn't been
a huge amount of change in getting hens out
cages.
Come 2016, we started getting the rest of
those major companies to commit.
We worked very much on getting Noble Foods,
the largest egg producer in the UK, one of
the largest in Europe, to commit to go cage-free
as well.
We now see free-range is moving up and the
enriched cage is moving down.
No.
This is the first.
It's been pretty plateaued for a while now.
We talk about numbers.
Hens may not make up the largest amount, but
they suffer in very huge numbers.
They also suffer for a prolonged period.
These birds will go into cages for all their
lives, and they'll be slaughtered at around
70 to 90 weeks of age.
The suffering is prolonged even if there aren't
vast numbers.
But yet, the numbers are pretty large; 38
million in the UK, 320 million when we talk
about the US, and nearly 400 million in Europe,
and actually worldwide, 7.6 billion.
The numbers are big, and the longevity of
suffering is long.
We have the Open Wing Alliance.
We need to tackle this 7.6 billion hens.
We need to get them out of cages.
The majority of which are in those cages.
The Humane League initiated the Open Wing
Alliance.
We brought together members from around the
globe to come together and unify a front to
get hens out of cages.
We share campaign strategies, tactics as organizations.
We share resources around the world.
We have 59 organizations in 57 countries now.
You can see here the black, indicating where
we are.
Month on month, new organizations are joining.
We give grants to these organizations in areas
where they might not get monetary support.
This allows activists on the ground to begin
this work in their countries, where there
just hasn't been the monetary support to allow
them to do corporate campaigning or any real
farm animal campaigning.
We also know that the industry are paying
attention.
In New Zealand, this is the Weekly Times.
In New Zealand, the industry put out that
with their banning the barren battery cage
and they go into the enriched cage, as we
did here in Europe.
But they said, "Don't bother.
Let's learn from what's happened in Europe.
These European producers are now having to
go into cage-free already.
They've only just changed, converted to enriched
cages.
Really, the global shift is happening.
It's come to New Zealand.
It will come, and we might as well go cage-free."
This is South Africa.
They also have set out or put out in the industry
magazine.
"The cage-free revolution is moving rapidly
through the world.
South African egg industry should make sure
they're prepared to accommodate that change."
As this has been going on worldwide now, organizations
are working on cage-free in countries like
United States, and here in Europe, and United
Kingdom or Sweden, for instance.
We're actually shifting now to look at chickens
raised for meat, or broiler chickens, as they're
known by the industry.
The numbers of these animals is vast.
One billion in the UK.
We're the second largest producer here, only
second to Poland; 8.5 billion in Europe, and
around about the same amount in the US, and
over 65 billion worldwide.
These birds account for nearly 95% of all
land animals being produced for food.
While the degree of time that they're on this
planet, which is six to seven weeks, is pretty
short, the numbers are vast.
Standard, intensive chicken rearing very much
looks like this.
It's a barren barn.
The chickens are on litter.
When they're younger, they have a bit more
space because they're smaller, but there's
tens of thousands of birds in one single shed.
They start like this.
As they grow, they have a lot less space.
They're in this until they're slaughtered
at six to seven weeks.
In that time, they'll suffer from conditions
like painful leg health problems, metabolic
diseases.
Because their legs are painful, they don't
want to move around so much.
They sit down on the litter a lot.
This can lead to blisters from the ammonia
on the litter that they're in for the whole
time.
In fact, their growth is such.
They grow six times faster than they would
have back in 1950s.
They've been genetically reared so that they
produce a much larger breast muscle.
It becomes very evident when you look at this,
from the New York Times.
The red really brown chicken is a higher welfare
breed.
The white bird is the typical intensive breed.
You can see the stature of the birds has changed.
No longer standing really upright, but actually
having to widen their stance to accommodate
the larger breast.
This change in stature means that the birds
tilt forward.
It changes how the center of gravity is, and
it makes it harder for them to walk.
Their actual skeleton is under a lot of pressure.
It has to grow so rapidly.
This one, anecdotal, is a research project
that's going on over in the states by Purdue,
shows just really the lethargy these birds
suffer.
The red birds, if you look, are moving around.
There's lots of activity.
But then, if you look at the white birds,
the majority are sitting down.
If they're not sitting down, they're at the
food or the water.
Of course, these birds grow so quickly that
they need to be eating continuously.
When they're not eating, all they're doing
is resting.
Now, these birds still have the same mental
capacities as the other birds.
It's just, unfortunately, they're trapped
in their own bodies and unable to behave how
they would choose.
At six to seven weeks of age, they will be
taken to the slaughterhouse.
Now, typically, that's a waterbath system.
This means the birds are hung upside down
by their legs.
They will go through a tank of water that
has an electric current, that will run from
the head to their feet.
That should give them an electric shock to
make them unconscious before their throats
are cut.
However, unfortunately, the system was made
for speed and not actually for welfare.
We're talking about 140 to 180 birds going
through this every minute through this process.
This system often doesn't actually give these
birds an appropriate electric shock to make
them unconscious.
In fact, many of them are conscious when they
get to having their neck cut.
For those that have their neck cut poorly
as well, they may make it through to the scalding
tank.
This is to remove the feathers.
But if they're still alive, they will obviously
experience the scalding tank fully conscious
or part conscious.
That's estimated to be around 2% to 3% in
the US that suffer from that.
Actually, the Trump administration has also
just allowed the speed of the line to go up
even faster.
There is an alternative, controlled-atmospheric
stunning, which uses either carbon dioxide
or inert gases to induce unconsciousness,
and then the birds will die and then the throats
are cut.
Now, this means that they don't have to be
handled in the same way.
Where the waterbath system, they're hung up
by their legs, which is painful.
The legs are weak, as we were saying.
They don't have a diaphragm so actually their
insides crush their lungs.
By not handling them and keeping them in the
crates, they don't have to experience this.
They also are much more... where they are
likely to become unconscious and then killed
versus a stun, which may actually just be
an electric shock before they experience their
neck being cut.
There is a lot of things that we can do to
improve the welfare of broilers.
We came together in the US and in Europe with
the animal welfare specialists from different
animal protection organizations, and came
and made a criteria to improve the welfare
of meat chickens.
That included changing the breed, having a
higher welfare breed.
So that their leg health, they don't suffer
from so many metabolic diseases, for instance,
is improved.
We also want to increase space.
These birds want to move around.
They need space in the shed so we've lowered
the stocking density and provided enrichment
in the shed, so pecking materials to keep
these birds active, like straw bales.
We've improved the lighting, provided natural
light here in Europe.
We insist on controlled atmosphere killing.
This means, the birds won't have to go through
the waterbath system.
We also want to make sure that companies actually
do this.
For that reason, we're asking for third-party
auditing and the companies each report year
on year or what progress they're making towards
this.
Now, over in the US, they've been doing this
for a year or so now.
In doing so, they've got many major companies,
over 95 now, to commit to this standard.
They're committed, by 2024, to improve the
welfare of their chickens in their supply
chain.
Here, in Europe, we're just beginning with
this over in the UK and France, for instance,
and Germany.
In doing so, we've got Elior Group, Nestle.
They're known to commit to making to the European
chicken commitment and that's expanding the
whole of Europe.
Some of these other ones are UK brands that
I'm sure you recognize.
Now, the most recent target for us, as animal
protection organizations, is McDonald's.
McDonald's is the world's largest restaurant
chain by revenue.
They serve 70 million people every day.
In doing so, we know that this is a brand
that people recognize.
It's a brand that needs to change.
In the US, there's a coalition of organizations;
Animal Equality, HSUS, Compassion Over Killing,
Compassion in World Farming, and us, and Animal
Equality have come together.
We have launched a campaign over there.
Here in the UK, you can see here, we've started
campaigning here too.
That includes protests, includes handing in
petitions, getting people in the streets to
be engaged with the issue, and also doing
protests outside the restaurants.
In the US, they've also got advertising out
in Times Square.
Now, what I've shown you volunteers taken
to the streets.
We also have another way of trying to get
the attention of these companies.
That's through their social media and actually
making contact with the companies themselves.
We have something called a Fast Action Network.
Other organizations have something similar
that you can join.
You'll get emails just to do, take a couple
of minutes of your time to action against
the companies.
If you would like to join up, you can just
go into the website.
You can find the Fast Action Network.
But really, this works by having the volume
of people contacting the companies.
It really engages the companies and keeps
reminding them that they need to be working
on this.
Of course, they worry about their brand, so
it's important that we make sure we're heard.
Now, while getting these welfare standards
through institution change is making a big
impact, we also know that replacing animal
products with plant-based or maybe cultured
meat one day is the future, where we can be
sure animals don't suffer.
In reality, it makes sense for companies as
well.
There is far less issues with plant-based
products when you think about antibiotic problems,
or greenhouse gases, or carbon footprint,
for instance.
With these cage-free commitments, as an example,
companies are actually seeing how difficult
it is for them to go down the supply chains,
and try and find out, is the company actually
using a cage-free egg.
What they're doing is, instead, they're switching
up.
How can we take this out completely and replace
it with something plant-based?
It's much simpler for them.
We know that this is working, and it's a company
of a higher welfare and the plant-based products.
They're also gonna be helping reduce suffering
year on year.
It's not just these commitments from companies
that we're gonna be working on.
We really need to follow through and make
sure these commitments come into fruition.
But there's also another way we can do that,
and that's through legislation.
In the US, they've been working on state legislation.
They have PROP 2.
They have PROP 12, which will be voted on
in just a few days from now.
That's extending to ending cages for hens,
for pigs, et cetera.
Not just on what's happening in country, so
the production, but also imports coming in
the state, also imports coming into the state.
California makes up 10% of the population,
so it's not a small thing.
It will impact the whole industry.
Over here in Europe, we have something called
the European Citizen Initiative that's being
run by Compassion in World Farming.
In fact, they've got organizations in all
the European countries to work on this and
collect signatures to end cages for hens,
ducks, quails, rabbits, pigs, calves.
That work is gonna take a year of gaining
a million signatures, but should then be pushed
through to the European Parliament.
Really, this approach is bringing together
both corporate campaigning, the plant-based
alternatives, and also finally, legislation
prohibiting these systems completely.
We're really now begin to see the landscape
for farmed animals changing.
We're already seeing the change for cages,
hens coming out of cages.
We're already beginning to be able to push
through legislation.
Now, we'll be able to say we are actually
beginning to see the reduction of suffering
of millions.
In fact, it will be billions of animals every
year.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I guess I wanted to get start off with a more
general question about the reasons that companies
will make these changes.
To what extent are they making changes because
they feel public press is really pushing them
versus legislation in their country changing?
Yeah, so there are companies that are savvy
and realize that actually this makes sense
and that we can be the first.
We can shout about it, and we can use it in
our favor to say that we care about welfare.
But many companies, unfortunately, that's
not the case.
When it comes to it, that's why we have to
launch these campaigns.
Highlight what companies are doing, the cruelty
that's in their supply chain, and they don't
want to be associated with that.
It's a mixture of both.
There are some companies that can see it,
and there are the companies, the majority,
unfortunately, where they need to have some
kind of public pressure, and some kind of
awareness before they'll make the change.
Right.
You said that for some companies that actually
is going to be in the long term, maybe more
cost saving.
Do you have any idea how long it takes for
them to move out of, say using...
I guess you were focusing mostly on chickens
so using something alternative to chicken
products in whatever replacement there would
be?
I don't know.
There's companies looking or replace, taking
out of proportion so like 20 or 30% or replace
it with plant-based so that they can reduce
the amount of meat that they're using.
With the eggs, it's certainly proven probably
quicker for them to do it, than almost.
Some supermarkets will have 2,000 or 3,000
ranges with ingredients that include eggs.
That's an incredible amount of lines to be
going through.
For them, it's easier if they can just say
to these companies, "Actually, I want you
to replace it with this," but I don't have
any strict timelines and what that will look
like unfortunately.
Sure.
What makes that corporate campaign more likely
to succeed?
Are there some basic principles across countries?
Does that really depends on where you are?
That's a really great question.
It does depend where you are.
In America, legislation is such that you can
do quite a lot, that you couldn't do here
in Europe.
You can do more things that maybe the public
doesn't see but you can campaign almost internally
to the companies.
Yes, here in Europe and in countries, it depends.
We found, for instance, in the UK, it's been
really effective for us to make them see us
day in, day out outside their headquarters.
There's a finance manager or whatever that's
feeling bad because they're involved with
this company that is actually doing so cruelty
within this pledge.
They probably haven't thought about it to
that extent before.
But you're standing outside their headquarters
and saying, "This is the headquarters of cruelty,"
which is what we did for Noble Foods.
That bothers them.
They begin to think about it.
Every country has a different approach based
on what's effective for them, but certainly,
getting out there and doing kind of silent
protest, being noticed by the companies day
in, day out makes a big difference.
Interesting.
You focused on chickens' welfare in your presentation.
Can you speak a little bit more about similar
campaigns for other farmed animals?
I'd be particularly interested in fish if
there's a campaign in that.
Sadly, there isn't really.
There's World Fish-free Day, I think it's
called or something like that.
That's happening in March next year.
That will be a big thing.
I think most organizations will talk about
that.
But I know that Compassion in World Farming
are beginning to start campaigning on the
humane slaughter of fish.
That will be up and coming so that's really
exciting and that'll be expanding in Europe
probably to start with.
Cool.
As a final question, if someone wants to go
into corporate campaigning, what's a good
way for them to get involved?
Oh, great.
Well, just put yourself out there as an activist,
starting to volunteer, learning the tactics
that we use is really helpful; because then
you can also go to the companies and say you
were involved in those tactics, and you know
exactly what's gonna happen.
Also, if you've got sales background or that
kind of thing, that kind of attitude can work
really well in going and talking to corporations.
Cool.
Well, thank you so much.
I really appreciated your time so much.
Thanks so much.
Thanks.
