Groups draft humane animal policy to avert PETA threats

Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 17, 2001 by Amy Zuber

WASHINGTON -- Seeking to quell continued pressure from consumer advocacy groups and win public support, the nation's leading chain restaurants and advocacy groups are banding together to standardize humane animal practices for suppliers.

The National Council of Chain Restaurants and the Food Marketing Institute announced in November that they would collaborate on a comprehensive animal welfare program with voluntary supplier guidelines created by a panel of third-party experts.

"Animal welfare is a concern for the entire food retail industry," said Terrie Dort, president of NCCR, a trade association representing such companies as McDonald's, Burger King and Papa John's. FMI conducts programs in research and education for its 2,300-member food retailer and wholesaler companies.

"We have partnered with FMI to work with the producer community to evaluate guidelines to see which ones may be strengthened and made better," Dort said.

The program was created with five goals in mind: consistency, a measurable audit process, implementation of practicable and attainable guidelines, an ongoing advisory council of animal welfare experts, and improved communications across the supply chain on animal welfare issues.

"If each company has different standards in place, that could create chaos in the industry," Dort stated. "We are getting involved to help suppliers come up with the strongest and best standards."

McDonald's was the first chain to establish national animal welfare guidelines. The move followed a public-affairs campaign launched in the 1990s by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, a Norfolk, Va.-based activist group, which placed mounting pressure on the world's largest burger chain to ensure that its suppliers weren't abusing animals raised for food. PETA eventually expanded its campaign to include Burger King and Wendy's.

"There has been a shift in public opinion," Dort acknowledged. "I think that some of the ad campaigns that PETA has engaged in have been successful in sort of shifting public sentiment. People aren't going to stop eating meat, but they do feel that animals should be treated humanely."

The nation's three largest burger chains have established guidelines that specify how cattle, pigs and poultry must be raised, housed, transported and slaughtered. While those chains have some variations in their policies -- for example regarding acceptable cage sizes for egg-laying hens -- Dort explained that one goal of the new animal welfare program is to devise standardized practices for all suppliers nationwide.

The guidelines could be approved as early as spring 2002, Dort said. The next step would be to set up an audit program with a third-party verifier, she added.

Meanwhile, as the program was initiated, PETA sent letters in November to three of the four largest pizza chains, asking them to curb alleged abuses, particularly against dairy cows that are used to produce milk for cheese, an important pizza ingredient.

PETA most recently filed a joint shareholder resolution with the Trillium Asset Management, a Boston-based firm specializing in socially responsible investments, asking Oakbrook, I11.-based McDonald's Corp. to expand to all of its international suppliers the animal welfare standards it has in place in the United States and the United Kingdom. PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said rivals Burger King and Wendy's already have adopted such international standards.

McDonald's spokeswoman Anna Rozenich responded, "The proposal has just been filed and therefore we are not prepared to discuss it publicly. More importantly, McDonald's is absolutely committed to animal welfare. We will continue to consult with experts on our independent Animal Welfare Council. It is these experts -- not PETA -- who have helped us develop our industry-leading actions that raised the bar on beef and poultry conditions. These leadership initiatives are backed by on-site audits and have been widely recognized."

Separately, Trillium said it filed a shareholder resolution asking Louisville, Ky.-based Tricon Global Restaurants, parent of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, to require its tomato suppliers to implement a code of conduct ensuring basic standards of farm workers' rights.

Tricon spokeswoman Amy Sherwood responded: "This is a union-labor issue between a company unrelated to us and their employees. We do not get involved with labor practices of third parties. We require all suppliers to comply with all federal, state and local laws, including wages."

However, Trillium said in a letter to Tricon chairman and chief executive David Novak that the fast-food company has a responsibility "to address the issues of worker rights and the low wages of those who pick tomatoes." Trillium asserted that Tricon's Taco Bell is one of the nation's largest purchasers of fresh tomatoes. The activist investment firm noted concerns about related demonstrations at Taco Bell restaurants, which "have closed down business for hours on end." The letter also stated that "failure to address this issue puts at risk not only Tricon's good reputation but also the company's future sales and profitability."