One of the largest grocery store chains in the United States, Safeway, has agreed to increase animal-welfare standards for some of the animal-derived products sold at its stores. Chickens and pigs were the focus of the most recent efforts pressuring the chain to adopt humane standards. Safeway has pledged to purchase more pork from suppliers that have started phasing out the most restrictive kind of crates that don’t even allow pigs to turn around; the chain has also promised to buy more eggs from suppliers that don’t use the most-cramped kind of chicken cages. Safeway also said it will source more poultry from companies that use a method of execution considered more humane than industry-standard electrocution and throat-slitting. “Safeway’s new policies represent important progress on basic animal-welfare issues and will positively affect many thousands of animals,” said the Humane Society’s Paul Shapiro.
