Christmas time is all about festive fun, twinkling lights good company and delicious food. Two of the most popular Christmas meats consumed in Britain are Turkeys and Smoked Salmon, with around 10 million turkeys being slaughtered each year.
This year, a new guide has been compiled by OneKind together with Compassion in World Farming to help inform consumers about a product’s animal welfare status. This will help shoppers chose between better quality meats in order to help support produce that has met higher animal welfare standards.
Not only will these products also have a higher nutritional value, but consumers can rest assured knowing that their purchase has helped support this cause. The guide helps to explain the different labels which are currently used on both turkeys and salmon to help you seek out the better quality meat.
The Farm Assurance Scheme aims to show the consumer how the animal was bred, reared and cared for before it was eventually slaughtered. Labelling systems can be deceptive and even the word ‘fresh’ doesn’t mean your product wasn’t intensively reared, so this guide has been produced in order to help consumers understand.
The farms were assessed in two areas. Firstly a rating was given to show how good the environment was and the ranking reflected the system provided. Then second score was awarded for 5 separate areas:
Husbandry
Environment
Stockman-ship, transport, handling and slaughter
Genetics and breeding
Auditing
For each category a maximum of 20 points could be awarded equating to a maximum of 100 points. A result of 50 plus points gives a Bronze award, this means that the Animal Welfare Standard is acceptable and better than the standard industry. More than 70 is a Silver Award means that the standards are higher still but miss some important issues unlike the Gold award which is given when the animal welfare standards are exceptionally high.
If an Organic label is found on your turkey or salmon then this means that they have received better than standard practices. Products specifically produced by The Soil Association Organic scored very well for their Animal Welfare standards along with the RSPCA Freedom Foods that provide a good standard of welfare for both their indoor and outdoor birds as they had restricted their numbers along with travelling times limited to just 6 hours. The RSPCA also had great conditions for their salmon including humane slaughter, prohibiting mutilations and lower stocks.
The Quality British Turkey/ red tractor label however scored much lower. The results showed that they comply with only the minimum legislative requirements and therefore any product is likely to have been intensively reared.
Should meat have no logo, farm fresh or a country fresh label on it, then these products will have been standard intensively reared and won’t be organic unless clearly stated.
At Labelservice we produce all types of food labels, no matter the type of print run you need. Contact us today for more information or some impartial advice.
