WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) — McDonald’s Corp. said Thursday that by 2022 it will no longer buy any pork from suppliers that use small, controversial pens known as gestation stalls to confine pregnant sows.
The fast-food heavyweight, in an effort to address concerns of animal welfare groups, announced in February that it would begin demanding that suppliers phase out the use of the narrow two-feet-wide stalls that groups like the Humane Society of the United States have called inhumane.
Within five years, the company said Thursday, it will only buy pork from “producers who share its commitment to phase out gestation stalls” and then those suppliers will have another five years to make good on the commitments.
“We value our relationship with our suppliers, and our shared commitment to animal welfare,” said Dan Gorsky, senior vice president of McDonald’s North America Supply Chain Management. “Our approach seeks to build on the work already in place, and we are also sensitive to the needs of the smaller, independent pork producers in phasing out of gestation stalls.”
The company said it will demand proof that suppliers are selling pork from farms that don’t use the stalls.
There are about 5.8 million breeding sows in the U.S. out of a total swine population of 65.9 million, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. McDonald’s says it purchases about 1{fd15d42d1b024b97d6d50958be27cc8145b6addb99e015780abccf2984117bb0} of total pork produced in the U.S.
Burger King Corp. announced in April that it, too, will begin buying pork only from producers that do not use the gestation stalls to confine sows.
Source: Dow Jones
Posted by Haylie Shipp
