Current labelling of meat and dairy products is unclear and misleading. Consumers don’t have the information they need to avoid factory farmed products.
Despite the terrible cruelty of intensive farming, right now there is no legal requirement for labelling to indicate how animals farmed for meat and dairy are reared. This means we have a haphazard mishmash with some products having voluntary labels, some having no information and some carrying labels or images which are downright misleading.
A factory farmed sausage labelled ‘all natural’ and ‘farm fresh’, with packaging showing green fields and trees, is still a factory farmed sausage. But how could an average consumer make an informed decision to avoid it?
When shoppers have clear information about farming systems, they change their buying habits – just like with eggs. Once eggs were labelled by farming method: Caged, Barn, Free Range or Organic, consumers bought more of the higher welfare eggs, changing the lives of millions of hens.
Our idea is simple; extend this labelling scheme to all meat and dairy products.
The UK government has expressed interest in better labelling, but time is running out to turn this interest into action.
Please add your name to our petition, calling on the government to tell us the whole truth.
