Farm Animal Welfare Statement

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We believe that every animal deserves to be treated with compassion and respect. Our dedication to animal welfare is at the heart of everything we do, guiding our farm animal welfare practices with our global supply chain partners. Even though we do not own or manage farms ourselves, we work closely with our suppliers to ensure that their animals are treated with care, understanding, and respect.

We foster transparency and embrace a collaborative approach with our suppliers for positive societal and environmental impact. Additionally, we recognise the indispensable role of other key stakeholders, including NGOs, governmental bodies, and researchers, in bringing meaningful change. These partnerships are essential in addressing the systemic issues inherent to the pet food sector and, collectively, forge a more sustainable future for the entire industry.

Hill's Europe and our European suppliers work to follow the internationally recognised Farm Animal Welfare Committee’s Five Freedoms. We are also taking several other measures to support further animal welfare efforts, including:

  • Dedicated Animal Welfare Committee since 2021 ** This team meets regularly, sets targets and drives progress toward ingredient transparency, responsible sourcing and greater sustainability for all animal species used. For example, the team has accomplished the transition to cage-free eggs for all products made in Europe and has reached the commitment to the European Chicken Commitment. The team comprises animal welfare specialists, sustainability leaders, and other functional experts. As we reach milestones in the near future, we are committed to publicly sharing our progress.

  • Supplier Relationships: Relationships with our suppliers are crucial, and we have developed and nurtured long-term relationships with carefully selected suppliers who adhere to our robust animal welfare, quality and food safety standards. We recognize that animal welfare transformation takes time to implement. We are working with suppliers to help ensure we advance animal welfare together.

  • EU Platform on Animal Welfare/Five Domains: One of our key priorities is to actively promote the development and use of voluntary commitments to improve animal welfare further. We follow the expert group of the EU Platform on Animal Welfare, which is driving meaningful contributions in the field of animal welfare. We also acknowledge there continues to be improvement to modern animal welfare with the Five Domains and are working on a discussion with suppliers on those concepts.

  • Industry collaboration: It is important for the entire pet food industry to bring about sustainable and lasting improvements for animal welfare. As a member of FEDIAF, we will work to push animal welfare issues forward and are closely following and actively supporting the progress of FEDIAF with regards to animal welfare.

  • Pledge for Poultry Products: Since 2024, Hill’s sources 100% cage-free eggs and egg-based products (excluding combination and limited access systems as well) for their wet and dry products made in Europe.
    Hill’s Pet Nutrition supports an EU-wide cage ban for laying hens, thus reaffirming its commitment to phasing out those systems in Europe.

Hill's Pet Nutrition commits to sourcing 100% of the chicken from farms and slaughterhouses that comply with the criteria of the European Chicken Commitment for its European business by 2030. This is an initiative supported by over thirty NGOs aimed at improving the conditions in which broiler chickens are reared and slaughtered. With this, we are the first pet food manufacturer to commit to this initiative throughout Europe. We have developed a roadmap with the support of Compassion In World Farming (CIWF) with key actions and milestones towards compliance with the ECC until the end of 2030. We'll be sharing our progress on this website each year.

ECC Compliance Roadmap

  • Investment in Alternative Proteins: Working with partners, we continuously explore new technologies to provide more sustainable ingredient solutions for pet nutrition, such as proteins developed through fermentation and incorporating insect protein.

  • Sustainably-Sourced Fish Products: The fish we source for our products comes exclusively from sustainably caught or farmed suppliers certified through the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, Marine Trust and Friends of the Sea.

  • Pledge for Other Animal Ingredients:: While thoughtfully implementing changes in the supply chain will take time, Hill’s is committed to ongoing cooperation with its global supply network to effect impactful positive changes in the humane treatment of animals. We are developing animal welfare sourcing standards for other ingredients used in our products and we will share our progress starting in 2025.