Improvement for Farmed Animals in the South! July 17, 2008

Posted by Marta at July 17, 2008 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 10 ) | TrackBack

Good news, people! After more than five months of negotiations with PETA, grocery-store chain Winn-Dixie has announced that it will improve conditions for some chickens, turkeys, and pigs in its supply chain. You can find Winn-Dixie's 520 stores throughout the states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana.

According to its new plan, Winn-Dixie will do the following:

• Give purchasing preference to suppliers that use or switch to controlled-atmosphere killing (the least-cruel method of bird slaughter, for those who don't know) and begin purchasing five percent of its turkeys by the end of 2010 from suppliers that use this method.
• Give purchasing preference to suppliers that don't use gestation crates—restrictive metal enclosures that confine pregnant pigs—and increase the total amount of pig meat that it purchases from crate-free facilities by five percent over each of the next three years (to reach a total of 15 percent).
• Give purchasing preference to producers of cage-free eggs, increase the amount of cage-free eggs that it sells to four percent by the end of 2009 and five percent by the end of 2010, and work toward increasing that amount to 10 percent within the next five years. They are also going to more heavily promote their cage-free eggs in the stores so as to boost sales of them (in turn lowering sales of eggs from caged hens).

It seems like every time I turn around there's another improvement for farmed animals. It's really amazing. Winn-Dixie is following in the footsteps of other major grocery and restaurant companies—including Safeway, Harris Teeter, Burger King, Carl's Jr., and Hardee's—all of whom have recently made animal welfare improvements after working with PETA.

Now this doesn't mean the animals are going to live wonderful lives, of course, but some of the worst abuses have been eliminated, which is always a good thing. One step at a time.

To thank Winn-Dixie, you can drop them a line through their on-line customer service form.

♥ Marta