CP Foods aims to produce more healthy food from stress-free animal farms

By THE NATION

 

 

Charoen Pokphand Foods (CP Foods) farms are transitioning toward a stress-free, high animal welfare environment in an effort to promote ethical and healthy food products, the company said on Tuesday.

 

“Animal welfare directly contributes to morals and ethics that include food safety and quality,” said Dr Payungsak Somyanontanakul, DVM vice president and chairman of CP Foods’ Animal Welfare Committee. “Therefore, raising animals healthily and seeing to their well-being, taking into account their rights, definitely promotes consumers’ health and satisfaction.” 

 

Payungsak explained that healthy animals produce better quality meat. The use of antibiotics is also significantly reduced in high welfare farms.

 

CP Foods is well aware that good animal welfare covers both animals’ mental and physical well-being, he said. Therefore, it is enhancing farming principles based on “Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare”, an internationally recognised principle, to ensure that all of its livestock farms are animal-friendly. Moreover, the antibiotics used at its farms as well as those by contract farmers are administered under veterinary oversight without compromising on animal welfare principles, he added.

 

“We have been focusing on improving the farming environment and providing enrichment to animals. They are free to eat, rest, and excrete as needed and can fully express their natural behaviour,” he said.

 

The company is transitioning its pig housing from individual stalls to group gestation pens for sows to give them the freedom to move and interact, helping them to feel more relaxed and stress-free.

 

Around 67.3 per cent of sow farms in Thailand and 14.9 per cent overseas will switch to group gestation pens this year. The global transition will be completed by 2028.

 

Payungsak added that the company has also built individual pens within a group pen for injured or ill sows. 

 

“It is possible that some sows can be injured or ill. In these cases, the sows will typically be separated from the group and cared for in a different pen. However, once the sows recover, they could become reinjured as they might be restricted by the grouping behaviour of sows if they are returned to the same pen,” he explained.

 

Last year, CP Foods collaborated with Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Veterinary Science to develop tests for Classical Swine Fever and Aujesky's Disease using swine saliva.

 

To date, the company has tested more than 13,000 samples of swine saliva for diseases, replacing the need to conduct blood tests on over 30,000 specimens.

 

In chicken farms, 100 per cent of the company’s broilers for producing meat have not carried any mutilations. CP Foods ensures that the average stocking density of broiler farming in Thailand and its overseas operations comply with European animal welfare directives and customer requirements, he said.

 

Cage-free housing for layer chickens is being piloted in Thailand, with the first batch of production from Wang Somboon farm in Saraburi province being launched in March 2019. Overseas, the company is implementing cage-free layer farms in Taiwan and Cambodia at 12 and 50 per cent of their production capacities, respectively.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/business/30374322

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-08-06

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Any improvement to the welfare of animals raised for slaughter is a good thing, but also an increase in the amount of vegetarian options from CP would be welcomed.

So he is basically saying that at present they are housed in gestation crates which are illegal in many parts of the world.

Changing to group gestation pens certainly sounds better, but it is all down to size as sows together in a group will often fight for resources.

So , no it is nowhere near a natural environment where they would have the space to keep away from each other.

Also would be interested to know the details on their contract farming as to who makes the investments and takes the losses.

They are all stressed when they get their throats cut then hung up on hooks to be butchered!

They are all stressed when they get their throats cut then hung up on hooks to be butchered!

Yes that is true I am sure. Good that part of the process is quick ... No need to be stressed for very long.


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Take away some of the Stress from the animals, and pass it on to the Humans with all the Additives Etc in their products.