Eat for animal welfare

If you care about animals, these shopping tips from the RSPCA will ensure your food purchases protect their welfare.

• Look for free-range, organic or Freedom Food logos to support higher welfare for animals;
• Familiarise yourself with food assurance scheme logos, what they mean and which ones you'd choose to support. Look for these when you're shopping and vote with your shopping basket;
• Try to buy food produced locally. This is good for the environment, the local economy and, where animals are concerned, this can mean they have not had to travel long distances in production or to slaughter;
• If you can't always buy local, show your support for the British farmer and buy British. There are a series of standards set in place for British food production, through a combination of government legislation and national food assurance schemes, which at least cover minimum welfare standards for animals. It is not as easy to regulate production methods for imported food, so adequate welfare for animals produced outside the UK is much more difficult to assess;
• Take a look at ingredients on the food you buy. All eggs should now be labelled with their method of production, i.e. free-range or eggs from hens kept in battery cages. Some ready-made meals, including some vegetarian ranges, use battery eggs. If the packaging does not detail the production method of the ingredients, you could ask your supermarket or write to the manufacturer to find out;
• If you're not certain that the food you want to buy is produced with animal welfare concerns in mind, ask your supermarket. It should know where the food has come from and how it was produced. Just asking will help raise awareness that consumers are concerned about these issues - make your voice heard.

Information provided by the RSPCA.