Higher-welfare choices for your Easter

Hip Hop Hooray, it’s almost Easter! If you’re like the many Australians looking forward to spending the Easter break with family and friends, you may also be wondering where to find higher-welfare options for your holiday meals.

Remember fish welfare

If you’re buying salmon in Australia, you may see different labels – wild caught, responsibly sourced, Alaskan, Tasmanian –  but for animal welfare, there’s only one certification that’s going to give you assurance that fish have been well cared for and had a humane death – RSPCA Approved.

Salmon reared by producers with RSPCA Approved certification live in oxygen-rich water with plenty of space for swimming and schooling with other salmon, and importantly whenever handled this is done in a low-stress manner.

Did you know that salmon, like any vertebrate animal, are sentient and have the ability to feel pain, fear and distress? So, not only is it important that they’re reared with welfare in mind, but also that they are slaughtered humanely (with stunning) when the time comes. Sadly, wild-caught salmon may not always have a humane death as a common way to kill wild-caught fish is through asphyxiation (from being taken out of water), exposure to very low temperatures (by placing them on ice) or from bleeding out during the gutting process.

Brands to look for: Huon RSPCA Approved Salmon, Woolworths Fresh RSPCA Approved Salmon

Sunday roast essentials

A pork roast is a firm favourite for many Australians over Easter, but the vast majority of pork products come from pigs raised in barren intensive environments, with no enrichment or bedding, and mostly all from pigs born to sows (mother pigs) in farrowing crates.

So, if you’re looking for assurance that your pork has been raised to a higher-welfare standard, and this has been assessed and verified – look for RSPCA Approved. The RSPCA’s standard for pigs requires more room to move, bedding, enrichment, and importantly no crates, stalls or cages of any kind, and no painful husbandry procedures such as teeth clipping, tail docking or surgical castration.

Currently only 1.6% of all pork produced in Australia is from producers with RSPCA Approved certification, but even with the small volume it’s not too hard to find. Coles Free Range RSPCA Approved pork is available at their stores nationally, listen to our podcast here to find out more about the range.

Brands to look for: Coles Free Range Pork, Barossa Fine Foods 

Bake with better eggs

For those that enjoy baking their Easter treats, remember better welfare begins with eggs from hens that aren’t confined to cages. If you are on a budget, even opting for cage-free eggs over cage eggs is a better choice for layer hen welfare and supports a move away from cages – which have inherent animal welfare issues.

RSPCA Approved eggs come from producers who meet our detailed animal welfare standard and are regularly assessed against this. This standard has 218 requirements for producers to meet on farm that are all geared towards providing a better quality of life for layer hens. Unfortunately, as the standard is challenging to meet, only two egg producers in the country currently have RSPCA Approved certification.

If you can’t find RSPCA Approved eggs, then check out our handy egg labelling blog as a guide for buying better eggs.  

Brands to look for: Rohde’s Free Range Eggs, Farmer Rods Free Range

From all of us at RSPCA Approved we wish you a Happy Easter.

Interested in reading more?

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How to choose higher welfare, no matter your budget