Compassion in World Farming held its Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards (GFAWA) in Paris on 21 October, recognising 49 winners from over 15 countries. This year’s Awards showcased the remarkable progress that companies worldwide are making toward more humane and sustainable food production.
Swiss-based Regal Springs received the inaugural Aquaculture Innovation Award for its commitment to fish welfare. The company is the first tilapia producer to research, develop, and implement humane electrical stunning methods specifically for tilapia, now applied across their entire production process.
Albert Heijn is the first retail chain in the Netherlands to ban eyestalk ablation in their shrimp supply chain, a policy already in effect for all fresh shrimp and will extend to frozen and processed shrimp by 2025, for which they received a Special Recognition Award.
M&S has developed a comprehensive protocol to monitor the health and welfare of shrimp throughout their supply chain. They exclusively source from producers that do not practice eyestalk ablation, making this a core requirement in their Select Farm standards, for which they also received a Special Recognition Award.
A Special Recognition Award was also presented to Chilean producer Cermaq for their global commitment to humane stunning methods for salmon.
Regal Springs is a global leader in tilapia production in Indonesia, Honduras and Mexico. The business is well-known for their social, health and engagement initiatives supporting the local communities but also a continual investment in R&D to achieve more responsible and sustainable farming practices. It is the first tilapia producer to research, develop and implement humane electrical stunning methods specifically for tilapia. They have now rolled out these humane stunning methods across their entire production. The scale of the number of animals set to benefit is 70 million tilapia per annum.
Laurent Develle, EVP Group General Counsel and Head of Corporate Affairs at Regal Springs said,
“This is a critical milestone for Regal Springs! Fish welfare is our priority at all stages of the farming process and after 3 years of hard R&D work we are pleased to receive this award to recognise the hard work of our teams and inspire other fish farmers!â€
Albert Heijn is the largest supermarket in the Netherlands with a market share of 37% and 895 stores. For aquatic animals, Albert Heijn engages in projects to stimulate research, improve fish welfare and have it embedded in certification. Specifically for shrimp the retailer set up an innovative collaboration across their entire supply chain – including feed suppliers, farmers, processors and retailers – to improve shrimp welfare, by eliminating the practice of eyestalk ablation, reducing stocking density, and implementing electrical stunning before slaughter.
Their partnership with the NGO Shrimp Welfare Project has been instrumental in developing solutions and policies for humane electrical stunning before slaughter. Albert Heijn is the first retail chain in the Netherlands to ban shrimp with eyestalk ablation on fresh shrimp and will do so for frozen shrimp and shrimp included in products by 2025.
M&S with over 300 food stores across the UK, covering 3.6% of food market share, continue to challenge themselves to improve welfare across their entire supply chain, for both terrestrial and aquatic animals. Through strategic partnerships with their shrimp producers, and with support from FAI Farms, they have developed a comprehensive protocol to monitor the health and welfare of shrimp in their supply chain.
Their initiative aims to enhance shrimp welfare and support scientific research to address knowledge gaps and drive progress. They have successfully established a shrimp supply chain free of mutilations, which directly improves welfare standards, and by providing farmers with training and tools, they are advancing all aspects of shrimp welfare throughout the entire life cycle.
The retailer now exclusively sources from producers who do not practice eye-stalk ablation, integrating this as a core requirement in their Select Farm standards. They have also defined new outcome measures and initiated electric stunning trials, rolling out new stunners and developing updated harvest protocols. As a result, approximately 300 million shrimp annually will benefit from this work.
CERMAQ is the second largest Atlantic salmon producer to commit to a global humane slaughter policy (following Mowi ASA’s commitment in 2022), that matches Compassion’s recommendation (the use of a single stunning method – automated percussive blow – followed by gill-cut/exsanguination). This commitment covers 100% of their farms across their entire operations in Norway, Chile, and Canada. The number of animals currently benefiting from their humane slaughter procedure is over 45 million salmon per annum.
Compassion in World Farming is the leading international animal welfare environmental organisation dedicated to ending factory farming and reshaping the food system to benefit the lives of animals, people and the health of the planet.
