Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: UK moves toward mandatory animal welfare labelling, published by AdamC on March 29, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Here in the UK, the government is consulting on mandatory animal welfare labelling (closing 7 May 2024). People may wish to respond if they want to express their support or share thoughts and evidence that could shape the outcomes.
I think such labelling has the potential to significantly improve animal welfare, not just through changing individual choices but by encouraging companies to stop selling the lowest welfare tiers entirely, and through raising labelling standards over time. Higher standards will probably also mean higher prices, lower consumption and 'fairer' competition with alternative proteins. What happens in the UK may also influence future reforms in the EU and elsewhere.
To summarise the proposals:
Mandatory labelling would apply to chicken, eggs and pig products (with the suggestion that beef, lamb and dairy could follow later)
At least initially, this would not apply to restaurants etc., but to food from retailers like supermarkets
At least initially, it would only cover unprocessed and minimally processed foods, so e.g. beef mince and probably bacon, but not meaty ready meals or meringues
There would be five tiers "primarily based on method of production", covering types of confinement, enrichment, mutilations, breed and more. Full draft standards can be seen here.
The tiers might be referred to by numbers, letters or stars, potentially also with names, colours and pictures (see their mock-up, which I think needs improvement)
The 2nd lowest tier would simply match UK minimum legal requirements, while the lowest tier would be for "products that are not verified as meeting baseline UK welfare regulations". I hope that a lot of retailers, with or without encouragement, will not sell the lowest tier products - reducing the prevalence of low welfare imports.
There is no explicit draft timetable but it suggests an 18 month implementation period after legislation. Speculatively, I would be surprised if legislation gets through before the general election, so potentially this could become law in 2025 and take effect in 2026 or 2027.
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