CRIMES WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES - gpvec

industry slaughter guidelines
In 2003, the Animal Welfare Audit Program of FMI-NCCR began conducting audits of
supplier slaughter plants upon the request of its members. In the first year of the program,
audits were conducted at six non-poultry slaughter plants, and in year two, five poultry
and one non-poultry slaughter plants were audited. 246 The number and identity of retailers
participating in the program is not publicized.
Certain individual retailers, such as restaurants and grocery stores, have developed their
own animal care guidelines, along with a process for auditing their suppliers’ compliance
with those guidelines. Fast food restaurants, including McDonald’s Corporation, Burger
King Corporation, Wendy’s International and Jack-in-the-Box, were the first retailers to
establish programs to monitor the treatment of animals by the animal agriculture industry.
In fact, their efforts in this area influenced the creation of the FMI-NCCR audit program,
mentioned above. 247
9.4 Compliance with industry guidelines
The results of industry and third-party animal care audits are generally not released to
the public. However, since 1999, Temple Grandin has compiled annual slaughter plant
welfare audits and posted the results on her website. 248 Her findings for cattle and pig
slaughter plants are summarized in Tables 25 (cattle) and 26 (pigs). The data show
that stunning effectiveness for both cattle and pigs improved dramatically from the
time of Grandin’s first audit in 1996 and 1999, when the first fast food audits began.
However, since 1999, the scores have fluctuated, with pig slaughter plants producing
higher stunning effectiveness scores than cattle slaughter plants. It should be noted that
each year, less than 100 of the 800 federal livestock slaughter plants are audited. These
plants are most likely among the country’s largest, and many of them are audited at least
annually, while most small U.S. plants have never undergone a third-party audit.
Grandin has compiled welfare audit results for poultry slaughter plants since 2004.
That year, only 22 of 47 plants (47 percent) met the requirement of properly stunning
99 percent or more of chickens on their first audit. Seven of the 47 plants (15 percent)
failed both their first and second audits. 249 In 2005, Grandin compared the audits
conducted for NCC with those conducted for a major unnamed retail customer. Because
of the way in which the NCC audits were scored 26 percent (5 plants) passed even
though they had serious abuses that should have, in Grandin’s opinion, resulted in
failure. The plants passed the audits because they did well on less critical aspects of the
audit. Grandin believes that the NCC audit form is valid but that “the scoring system
must be made more strict.” 250
246 Ibid. See also the Retail Food Industry Auditing Program section of Farm Sanctuary’s Farm Animal
Welfare report.
247 Ibid.
248 See http://www.grandin.com.
249 Although NCC guidelines allow a 2 percent failure rate for effective stunning, some customers (retailers)
require a failure rate of 1 percent or less. See Grandin T, 2004 restaurant animal welfare audits of stunning and
handling in federally inspected U.S. and Canadian beef, veal, pork, lamb, and poultry slaughter plants.
(http://www.grandin.com/survey/2004.restaurant.audits.html)
250 Grandin T, 2005 poultry welfare audits. (http://www.grandin.com/survey/2005.poultry.audits.html)
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