Originally appearing in meatingplace
Over a decade ago, animal rights activists found success in bullying restaurants, supermarkets, and foodservice companies into making pledges to only buy cage-free eggs, before moving on to pork and poultry pledge campaigns. Fast forward to now, and the tide seems to have shifted.
Animal activists have spent much of this year desperately trying to get companies to keep their cage-free egg pledges, a tough task given skyrocketing egg costs. And their poultry campaign, under the banner of “Better Chicken Commitment,” appears flailing as well.
Compassion for World Farming, which tracks poultry pledges, released a video this spring saying 142 million broilers stood to benefit from their working group. But that’s only about 1.5% of the broiler industry, indicating their campaigns haven’t majorly affected production practices.
CIWF also states that about 20% of companies that have made a poultry pledge are reporting progress. That means about 80% of companies that have made a pledge are not reporting any progress.
Actions speak louder than words. Animal activist groups heckle and harass companies to make these pledges, and many companies might make a pledge simply to get them to go away.
Why are animal activists struggling? Several reasons come to mind.
First, some corporate leaders have wised up to the activist game. Executives have learned that animal activists won’t be satisfied with cage-free eggs or “better” chicken because they don’t want anyone to eat eggs or poultry at all.
Second, companies have learned that these pledges can come with unacceptable environmental costs that undermine a company’s ESG priorities. For poultry, a study found that adopting “Better Chicken”-like standards, which require slower-growing birds, would have a massive environmental impact.
If just one-third of broilers were raised using these alternative production standards, it would require 1.5 billion more birds to be raised every year. This, in turn, would result in huge quantities of additional feed and water to grow these birds, which would produce about 30 billion pounds of manure waste that would have to be managed.
That’s not something many companies would want to sign up for.
The corporate campaign game isn’t won yet — and it may never be. A single foundation in California, run by a billionaire, is funding these corporate campaigns and has earmarked over $100 million since 2016 to fund them. While you might enjoy a Saturday afternoon with family and friends, vegan activists spend their free time protesting and calling corporate headquarters. Dealing with activists can be a never-ending war.
But as we can see from the evidence above, pushback is effective at limiting any gains. Ultimately, companies respond to the laws of supply and demand and the wishes of their customers. And at the end of the day, the activists represent a fringe ideology that the public doesn’t subscribe to.
Jack Hubbard is the Executive Director of the Center for the Environment and Welfare