New Guide Informs Students, Educators How Their Campus Cafeteria Food Is Sourced

Animal Welfare Practices of Leading Foodservice Providers including Sodexo, Aramark, Compass

NEW YORK, Aug. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As students return to school around the country, a new guide by The Humane League reveals the poor animal welfare practices of leading foodservice providers like Sodexo that provide dining and catering at educational, governmental, and commercial institutions. To inform consumers and help foodservice clients better align their vendors with their environmental, social, and corporate governance values, this guide examines what foodservice providers are doing to improve the welfare of chickens raised for meat, egg-laying hens, and breeding pigs. The full guide can be viewed at BetterFoodService.com.

"Animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility are no longer negotiable for companies or the public—but some foodservice providers are still failing to deliver," said Vicky Bond, President of The Humane League. "As today's impact-minded students and consumers return to campuses, it'll become more critical that these lagging providers rise to the challenge or lose their clients. Companies like Sodexo need to make meaningful improvements to the cruel treatment that the animals raised for food within their supply chains are receiving. Consumers and vendors deserve to know how their food is sourced."

A clear majority of Americans care about the humane treatment of animals and would switch to brands with higher welfare, which is evident from ten US states having passed farm animal welfare legislation. As a result, hundreds of companies have begun to make important progress by issuing public commitments to animal welfare in supply chains, including the Better Chicken Commitment to improve the treatment and breeding of chickens raised for meat, 100% cage-free policies to remove egg-laying hens from cruel battery cages, and ending gestation crate confinement of mother pigs. But public progress reporting and the implementation of those policies is crucial—when corporate commitments go unfulfilled, they lose their meaning, deceive consumers, and harm animals.

With a total market size of $45 billion, and employing more than half a million workers, the US foodservice provider industry is large and growing. As unemployment rates decline, income levels rise, and consumers return to in-person gatherings, food service industry revenue is expected to rise in coming years. With that growth, animal welfare progress must be prioritized.
The full guide can be viewed at BetterFoodService.com. For more information and to take action against these industry practices, visit EndCages.com and StopBoilingBirdsAlive.com.

The Humane League is a global nonprofit that exists to end the abuse of animals raised for food by influencing the policies of the world's biggest companies, demanding legislation, and empowering others to take action and leave animals off their plates. Since its founding in 2005, The Humane League has focused on effectively ending the worst abuses in factory farming, securing strong animal welfare commitments from major foodservice providers, restaurants, food manufacturers and hospitality leaders around the world, changing the lives of billions of farm animals suffering every day.

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SOURCE The Humane League