RSPCA Approved products are now found on menus and in supermarkets and butchers Australia-wide, making it easier than ever to choose humanely farmed eggs, meat, and products with humanely farmed ingredients. Understandably though, many Australians want to know they are making a good choice and what the RSPCA Approved label actually means for animals and their welfare.
This November, we’re excited to show you the first of our Good Food short videos – a series featuring farmers, retailers and the RSPCA who will explain what farming to the RSPCA’s standards means for animals on farm.
To start, we’re featuring Australian supermarket Woolworths who have proudly offered RSPCA Approved chicken since 2014. For its range of Woolworths brand chicken products, the supermarket sources from farms that take pride in raising their birds in an enriched barn environment. For Woolworths, it’s important that chickens have space to move, good lighting that encourages them to be active, perch, dustbathe and forage. Birds also have a period of complete darkness, which ensures they can rest properly every day.
In these videos you’ll hear from our dedicated staff about RSPCA standards, Turi Foods about supplying Woolworths with a humanely farmed product, and a RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme Assessor about their part in raising the welfare standards in Australian chicken farming.
We hope you enjoy the videos and feel confident you’re making a good choice by choosing RSPCA Approved chicken. If you have a question, we’d love to hear from you, so post us your thoughts.
8 Comments
8 responses to “RSPCA Approved chicken in Woolworths – what’s it all about?”
Hello
Is woolworths chicken halal ?
Hi Tanya,
Products that have the RSPCA Approved certification may also be Halal, but as Halal certification is a separate program to RSPCA Approved certification, we encourage you to check product labelling for official Halal certification.
Woolworths own brand chicken has the RSPCA Approved certification. The RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme has a focus on farm animal welfare, which includes a requirement that the animal is stunned prior to slaughter. Pre-slaughter stunning is a standard practice in many Australian abattoirs producing Halal-certified meat. However, Halal certification is a separate program to RSPCA Approved certification.
Are all your chickens Halal Certified?
Hi Safiya,
Thank you for getting in touch regarding RSPCA Approved chicken.
The RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme has a focus on farm animal welfare and our Standard for meat chickens includes a requirement for pre-slaughter stunning at slaughter. Pre-slaughter stunning is a standard practice in many Australian abattoirs producing Halal-certified meat.
Therefore, products that have the RSPCA Approved certification may also be Halal, but as Halal certification is a separate program to RSPCA Approved certification, we encourage you to check product labelling or contact the brand directly.
We hope this helps answer your query.
Hi, I have seen that male chicks get shredded because they can not be eaten or used for eggs does that happen on rspca farms as well
Hi Shareen,
Thank you very much for sharing your concerns.
Male chicks are not macerated on farms with RSPCA Approved certification – for either meat chicken farms for chicken meat production, or layer hen farms for egg production. Like with any two farming industries, the meat chicken industry and the egg industry operate in different ways.
Meat chickens are the offspring of breeder stock hatched from eggs which are imported from specialist breeding companies overseas. Fertile eggs produced by parent birds at the breeder farms are incubated at hatcheries until the chicks hatch. After hatching, both male and female chicks are transferred to growing farms where they are reared as meat chickens. Hatcheries supplying chicks to be reared as meat chickens do not cull male chicks and are separate to those supplying egg production.
The culling of male chicks is a practice that occurs in the egg industry as they are considered a by-product due to being unable to lay eggs. The sex of day-old chicks is determined at the hatchery not at the egg farm. We understand the community’s strong feelings regarding male chick culling; it’s an ethical issue within the egg industry and an ethical issue that concerns many Australian farmers and consumers alike.
The RSPCA continues to urge the egg industry to invest in alternatives that remove the need for male chick culling. There are new technologies currently being developed to provide commercially viable replacements that would eliminate the need to cull male chicks once they’ve hatched. You can read more about this here: rspcaapproved.org.au/news/csiro-helping-solve-one-australian-farmings-biggest-animal-welfare-challenges/
What type of stunning is used before slaughtering ?
Hi Abdo, thank you for your interest in meat chicken welfare.
The RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme has animal specific welfare requirements for slaughter as part of our Standard for meat chickens, including that animals are stunned before slaughter. This is vital to ensure best animal welfare practice as there are much greater risks of an animal suffering during slaughter without stunning. Under the Standard, meat chickens may be stunned in two ways; electrical stunning systems, and controlled atmospheric stunning systems.
Stunning prior to slaughter is legally required in Australia. Stunning is intended to render the animal unconscious so that slaughter can be carried out while the animal is insensible to pain. You can hear more about stunning in slaughter in this podcast episode.