What we’ve achieved for animals in 2022, with your help

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to share with you what we’ve achieved this year, just our second since we launched at the start of 2021.

As part of the Effective Altruism community, our mission remains to end the suffering of farmed animals – with our focus squarely on reducing some of the worst suffering for chickens bred for meat. 

Chickens are naturally curious and playful. They have a lifespan similar to most dogs and will bond with humans if given the opportunity. The way they are bred and raised on barren factory farms is one of the cruellest practices in Aotearoa.

Now more than ever, people are becoming aware of the unnatural breeds of chickens used in Aotearoa and the suffering caused by their abnormally fast growth. The momentum is building, helping us to grow our pledge signatures, launch a new petition and get more and more supporters to contact food brands directly. 

Behind the scenes, we’ve been able to use our increased profile and support to successfully work with food businesses to commit them to increase their chicken welfare standards. This means the chicken industry must rise to meet this demand by shifting to healthier chicken breeds who grow more naturally and have much better living conditions. 

This year, not only did we get our first commitment to the Better Chicken Commitment (the second ever in Aotearoa) from ready-meal company SwoleFoods, we went on to get the two largest meal kits to sign up too – My Food Bag and HelloFresh.

Update: As of August 2023, The Coffee Club, Bird On A Wire, Columbus Coffee and Mexico have committed to the BCC in New Zealand.

As well as these commitments – the core of our work to give chickens much better lives – some other signs of our progress include:

• Launching the Australia-New Zealand Better Chicken Commitment supported by SPCA NZ, World Animal Protection, Compassion in World Farming and 12 other local and global organisations.
• Nearly quadrupling our supporters to 4,352 (bring on 5,000!).
• Launching our ranking report Delivering Better, that ranked food delivery brands on their progress towards changing the way chickens are farmed. 
• Our petition to Nando’s and Pita Pit gaining 3,684 signatures and counting…
• Putting up billboards calling out the shocking reality of free-range chicken farming in NZ. 

Check out all we have achieved:

This is the start of even bigger things to come. We are creating a transformation of the chicken industry and the first steps are the hardest to achieve. Next year, we will be ramping up our campaign focussing on Nando’s and Pita Pit (plus some other campaigns I’ll be revealing to you in the coming months).

Bring on 2023!