Those who follow global food trends will be well aware that the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) is fast becoming the industry standard for food businesses that care about the welfare of chickens bred for meat.
Now, My Food Bag, New Zealand’s longest standing subscription-based meal kit and food solutions provider, has come on board. This builds on a long history of My Food Bag only sourcing free range or free farmed meat, and has been a core value of the meal kit company since the very beginning.
“My Food Bag’s commitment to transition to the Australia-New Zealand BCC by 2026 will see the New Zealand owned and operated company improve and evolve its animal welfare initiatives and its commitment to consciously source high-quality proteins, without compromising on animal welfare.”
My Food Bag
The commitment from My Food Bag will result in millions of chickens living better lives.
Chickens bred for meat have been bred to suffer. Because of the unnatural breeds used, all chicken meat, including free-range, came from abnormally fast-growing chickens designed to grow ‘meat’ not sustain life. This has come about from decades of selective breeding by the chicken industry. But this is changing.
Alongside Animals Aotearoa, companies like My Food Bag are making sure things change – by demanding more natural breeds of chickens with much better living conditions.
Today’s announcement means farms that supply My Food Bag will be:
- shifting to healthier chicken breeds who grow more naturally
- installing windows
- giving chickens more space (i.e. reducing the number of chickens they keep in each shed); and
- building perches for chickens to rest on and providing materials for them to play with.
My Food Bag is the third company in New Zealand to sign the BCC, after Domino’s and SwoleFoods and joins more than 500 companies worldwide.
Update: As of August 2023, HelloFresh, The Coffee Club, Bird On A Wire, Columbus Coffee and Mexico have committed to the BCC in New Zealand.
In 2021, a poultry industry representative said that healthier chicken breeds would become available in New Zealand if “there was a demand for it which made it justifiable”.
The BCC is all about showing that demand, and we are delighted to be working with My Food Bag and others to bring about this change.
The big question left is: Who will be next?
Sign up to our online action team (The A-team) to take easy online actions for chickens and stand against their suffering. Help us change the way the chicken industry treats chickens, one food business at a time.