Home News What is the WelfairTM seal? Ethical consumption

What is the WelfairTM seal? Ethical consumption

En more than 4.000 supermarkets Throughout Spain you can already find a badge that helps you to purchase different products from Animal origin. If you do not know what is the WelfairTM sealHere we are going to explain it to you in detail so that you can look for it among the large number of options, especially meat. Backed by science and complying with European scientific standards, it is a way ethics that you consume foods that guarantee animal welfare. An issue that has been increasingly controversial in an increasingly aware society. Then we reveal everything about this label.

The demand for ethical and sustainable food

The birth of this indicator that is impregnated in the packaging of each product originating from an animal responds to the demand of recent years. That linked to food made under ethical and sustainable development criteria, two characteristics highly valued by current consumers. In times before the present, not so much information and data about food production systems was accessible. But today yes, so there is a remarkable interest by society, who wants to know as elaborated what you eat afterwards. Along these lines, people demand ethical practices with the treatment of animals.

grazing sheep
Sheep in grass / Photo: quesocastellano.es

Ensuring that the conditions in which they are raised and live to be slaughtered is something that matters a lot in order to avoid suffering, stress or other ailments. From food to accommodation, through the physical and emotional state of health. All this that is popularly known as animal welfare has a lot to do with what is the WelfairTM seal. It is the first developed by science, after a collaboration between the Agrifood Research and Technology Institute (IRTA) and the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development (Neiker).

What is the WelfairTM seal and animal welfare

El animal welfare that recognizes this distinctive has a clear definition, that given by the WHO in 2008: "It designates the physical and mental state of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives and dies". On the other hand, the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) established in 1979 guidelines related to this concept. Later, they evolved into four principles and twelve criteria that must be met in farms to guarantee it. Among other labels that have emerged since then to know if a food respects this characteristic, there is also this novel scientifically endorsed.

meat
Piece of meat with spices

What is the WelfairTM seal so? Well, the one that you can see in packaging of meat products from the species bovine, porcine and ovine. But also the meats of Turkey, rabbit, chicken and chickens can carry it. In addition to other derivatives of all these animals: eggs, milk, smoothies, yogurts, and so on. Soon the idea is for this distinctive to be incorporated into foods made from quail and goats.

La monitoring with indicators (validated by researchers from European projects Welfare Quality and AWIN) provide information and data for animal control. For each species, four basic principles of accommodation, state of health, natural behavior and food are thus evaluated.

what is the WelfairTM pig seal
A pig and her young in a sty

Now you know what is the WelfairTM seal. Look for and find this green label on products with a large quantity of supermarkets, from the best known to the not so widespread. Are you also committed to animal welfare?

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