I received a press release recently from Evermore Pet Food, who makes one of the foods on our list of the best frozen commercial dog diets. Evermore’s products are are cooked (using a low-heat culinary methods [sous-vide]) in a human-food production facility and contain only “obsessively sourced” human-food ingredients. From the company’s inception, the founders committed to using only the most humanely raised food-source animals in their products.
This commitment was acknowledged last month by an organization called Compassion in World Farming with a “Better Chicken Award,” given in recognition of the company’s as the first commercially prepared food and second overall company in the world* to fully implement the Compassion in World Farming’s “Better Chicken Commitment (BCC).” This standard does more than just requiring chicken farmers to provide the potential for birds to go outdoors (making them “free-range” or “cage-free”); it more fully encompasses the environment the birds live in. This includes the density of the birds in their living area, referred to as “stocking space,” giving them more room to flap their wings and walk comfortably. The BCC calls for an enriched environment, with more light provided than standard “growing barns” provide (conventional factory farms keep the light low, to keep overcrowded birds calm), clean and dry substrate underfoot, as well as giving them roosts and elevated platforms to sleep on. The BCC also addresses the genetics of the chickens—promoting breeds that don’t grow so quickly that they are unable to stand when they reach slaughter weight—and humane slaughter methods.
Having grown up in Petaluma, California, once the “egg capital of the world” (and still home to many chicken and egg producers when I lived there), I have seen factory chicken farms. One of my best friends in high school lived in a rental house that was situated on the property of one of these farms, and not only was the smell and noise of the highly concentrated chickens evidence of the suffering we couldn’t see going on inside the barns, we regularly witnessed farm workers removing the birds that died in the barns before they were mature enough to harvest; their carcasses were horrible to behold, as sick and dying chickens often get attacked and maimed by their peers. The ones that lived didn’t look much better! We’d see them only when they were loaded into trucks (usually at dusk or dawn, when the low light kept them calm), but even these “healthy” birds looked awful, only half-feathered and with skin raw from ammonia burns—a side effect of living their entire but short lives in their own mess.
Anyway, I applaud any efforts made by food producers to buy and use humanely raised meat sources in their products—and wholeheartedly admire companies like Evermore. It’s awesome that they have managed to make a high-quality food for dogs at a price that is not out of line with their competitors, using ingredients that are demonstrably far better than just “cage-free.”
*By the way, Campfire Treats, located in a town not far from me, is the first company in the world to meet all the standards of the BCC. I’ll be checking out their dog treats soon!
Do humane certifications or humane claims influence your buying decisions? Please tell us why or why not!
