Status: 01/13/2022 2:43 p.m.
Large retailers such as Edeka or Aldi now want to ensure more species-appropriate animal husbandry not only with meat, but also with their milk range. Products from companies with the lowest standard should disappear from the shelves.
More and more large retail chains want to forego milk from producers with low animal husbandry standards in the future. Most recently, Edeka and the cheap subsidiary Netto followed the discounters Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd with a corresponding announcement. They had announced that in the foreseeable future they would completely dispense with milk in their own brands, the production of which only meets the minimum legal requirements for animal husbandry.
Aldi wants to convert the milk range by 2024. Edeka and Netto have even set themselves the goal of taking this step this year. Further milk and dairy products are to follow.
Edeka is currently advertising organic milk and other milk products from organic farming on its website with bucolic scenes. “With animal-friendly husbandry, cows enjoy more freedom than animals from purely conventional husbandry,” it says there. They could “eat their fill of fresh greenery and pursue their natural needs, such as maintaining social contacts with one another”.
Meat husbandry labeling
The large grocery retailers in Germany had already announced that they would introduce four-stage husbandry labeling for meat and meat products by the turn of the year – similar to that for eggs. With four levels (“stable housing”, “stable housing plus”, “outside climate”, “premium”) consumers should be able to see at first glance how high the animal welfare level is when keeping livestock.
Aldi wants to switch its entire fresh meat range consistently to keeping methods 3 and 4 by 2030. This includes beef, pork, chicken and turkey, with the exception of international specialties and frozen products. In the past year, the forms of husbandry had a share of 15 percent according to their own information.
In fact, more and more consumers want to know where the animal foods that are offered to them on the refrigerated shelves of supermarkets come from. They also want to be sure that the animals are being treated well. Aldi has therefore set itself the goal of improving the conditions in livestock farming as a whole – not just for individual products. Hence the labeling of the type of husbandry: since the beginning of the year it has also been extended to dairy products.
“Can only be fulfilled by certain pet owners”
Many farmers are skeptical about the new quality requirements of retail chains. The farms would have to “meet a requirement that can only be met by certain livestock owners,” complains Carsten Matthäus from the German Agricultural Publishing House. Producing high quantities of meat with high efficiency using modern animal husbandry methods at the lowest possible prices is something that not every farmer can do. Nor does the new husbandry label change the fact that consumers are usually not given crucial information: where the meat, milk and feed come from, where it is processed and who gets how much of the retail price.