Document type: article published by Welfarm
Author: Welfarm
Preview: Naturalia, a Casino Group retail brand specializing in organic products, announces the rollout of the Animal Welfare Label on its line of broiler chickens. This initiative makes Naturalia the first organic brand in France to incorporate this labeling on its private-label products and offers consumers the opportunity to make informed choices at the store by providing clear, reliable, and robust information on animal welfare standards.
The Animal Welfare Label is based on a scientific, transparent, and robust methodology that assesses the level of welfare throughout the animals’ entire lives, from birth to slaughter. This approach goes beyond existing standards—including those for organic farming—by providing information specifically focused on animal welfare that is directly accessible to consumers on store shelves.
What does the Animal Welfare Label offer in addition to the Organic Agriculture label?
While the Organic Agriculture (AB) label governs a set of sustainable agricultural practices (no GMOs, limited use of inputs, feed sourced from organic farming, access to the outdoors, etc.), as well as a high standard of animal welfare on the farm and at the slaughterhouse, the Animal Welfare Label provides a detailed, complementary perspective. In particular, it allows for:
- To assess the level of well-being of chickens from birth through slaughter, using criteria specific to parent stock (9 criteria), transport (29 criteria), and slaughter (136 criteria).
- In addition to requirements related to the animals’ environment, conducting direct observations of the chickens by evaluating performance indicators (chicken behavior, litter cleanliness and crumbly texture, etc.).
- To provide a simple way to compare products, including those within the same organic category, using ratings that range from A to B.
As Sidonie Tagliante, Director of Marketing, Communications, and CSR at Naturalia, points out: “We firmly believe that transparency should be a standard, not an option. With the Animal Welfare Label, we aim to provide our customers with a simple, reliable, and robust guide that allows them to better understand the conditions of raising, transporting, and slaughtering animals, and to make choices consistent with their expectations regarding animal welfare.”
Greater transparency for consumers
Welfarm is a member of the Animal Welfare Label Association, which promotes this labeling, alongside other NGOs and retailers, including Casino, the parent company of Naturalia. We welcome Naturalia’s initiative and hope it will inspire other French organic retailers to follow suit. The growing number of retailers joining the Animal Welfare Label Association reflects a desire to gradually structure the market around a shared goal: to increase transparency for consumers regarding animal welfare standards on store shelves.
