New digital billboards are up at two busy intersections in Auckland showing how the chicken industry has been caught out deceiving people with their chicken meat marketing. These billboards have an estimated 96,073 daily views.
A new Horizon Research poll, commissioned by Animals Aotearoa, revealed that when people are buying chicken labelled ‘Cage free’, ‘Barn Raised’ and ‘No Added Hormones’, they want to support farmers who have better animal welfare practices, they want healthier meat and they don’t want their chicken meat to come from factory farms. In reality, these labels mean business as usual – factory farming. No chickens bred for meat in New Zealand are ever caged, they are all in barns and hormones are never given to them.
We know that most New Zealanders care about animal welfare, and don’t want to be supporting the severe suffering that’s taking place on factory farms around the country.
Far from helping people make informed choices, the chicken industry has been using labels to ‘humanewash’ the meat they are selling sell.
When people surveyed learned how they are being misled, 78% agreed with the statement, An independent third-party standard should define what animal welfare and other claims can be made about chicken meat sold in New Zealand.
Also, when they were educated about the current suffering of chickens bred for meat, 77% agreed they would like their supermarket to provide chicken meat that meets the Better Chicken Commitment. (The Better Chicken Commitment gives chickens better lives by changing to breeds who suffer less and giving them more space, enrichments and other living improvements.)
Animals Aotearoa is making a complaint about these misleading labels on chicken meat, to the Commerce Commission and the story was covered by Newsroom NZ.
Add your name to our complaint to the Commerce Commission to stop people being deceived by chicken marketing labels and help improve chicken welfare standards.
Chicken industry is caught misleading people.
A big thank you to Media 5 for these billboards.