Compassion’s ChickenTrack report aims to measure company progress towards meeting the higher welfare requirements of the 2026 European Chicken Commitment (ECC).
It aims to drive compliance and encourage transparency by sharing best practice from the companies who are demonstratively leading the way. It also provides a platform to support and encourage companies so that a successful transition to higher welfare chicken is achieved across all sectors.
2021 European ChickenTrack
The 2021 introductory European ChickenTrack report lays the ground for measuring company progress towards introducing higher welfare chicken.
It rounds up some of the progress that has been made over the last year and provides examples of best practice reporting.
It also lays out a reporting framework for businesses to adopt ahead of the 2022 European ChickenTrack.
The Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) – also referred to as the European Chicken Commitment – is a unified corporate ask developed in 2017 and supported by more than 30 NGOs in Europe committing its signatories to introduce higher welfare standards for chickens in their supply by 2026.
By signing up, companies commit to provide chickens with more space to live, with natural light and enrichment for occupation, and to ensure slower growing breeds with proven welfare outcomes are adopted, as well as humane slaughter without live inversion of the birds, and third-party auditing.
The criteria are known to improve bird welfare as evidenced by science and best-case examples and the commitments are set to benefit hundreds of millions of birds annually.
In the US, over 200 companies have agreed a similar ask to provide better welfare for broilers by 2024.
Compassion has worked closely with many of the leading companies signing up and to date, more than 1.1 billion broiler chickens are set to benefit from our corporate partners’ higher welfare policies, practices and commitments.
ChickenTrack will officially begin to highlight company progress towards their broiler welfare commitments annually from 2022.
Companies will be selected based on their size, chicken footprint and market influence, and are asked to publicly disclose their reporting ahead of the 31st July 2022 deadline, in line with other updates required for BBFAW and EggTrack.
All information in ChickenTrack will be based on companies’ publicly disclosed information. For progress numbers to be included in the annual report and displayed on the tracker, all relevant information must be publicly available on a company’s website or in another relevant document including, but not limited to, an animal welfare policy, an ESG/CSR or progress report, or a press release.
Working with Compassion
Public facing commitments to change are important first steps for any company, however, mapping out a route to implement that change is vital and will require working with all stakeholders (both internal and external) involved in the supply chain.
Compassion works with companies from sign-up to having BCC-compliant product on shelf. If you need help or want to join our broiler forums and working groups, please get in touch.
We will be happy to take you through our guide on Building a Roadmap to Implement Higher Welfare Chicken which provides helpful support and guidance on how to:
Build the business case with internal and external stakeholders
Map out the supply chain
Secure supply chain solutions
Bring consumers on board through marketing and communications
Contact us for more information or read more about higher welfare broiler production here.
The 12 companies included in the report - Applegate, Blue Apron, ButcherBox, Cafe Spice, Farmer’s Fridge, Natural Grocers, Sprouts Farmers Market, Square Baby, Sweetgreen, The Cheesecake Factory, Thrive Market and Whole Foods Market - have demonstrated an understanding of the importance of transparency by publicly reporting their progress towards the BCC.
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If you have any further questions regarding this, or any other matter, please get in touch with us at supporters@ciwf.org.uk. We aim to respond to all queries within two working days. However, due to the high volume of correspondence that we receive, it may occasionally take a little longer. Please do bear with us if this is the case. Alternatively, if your query is urgent, you can contact our Supporter Engagement Team on +44 (0)1483 521 953 (lines open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm).