What now for RSPCA Assured?
The RSPCA’s own President says it should drop its farming certification scheme, as Sandy Neil reports.
The campaign group Animal Rising is calling on the RSPCA to drop its ethical food labelling scheme, RSPCA Assured, following what it calls “the biggest scandal in RSPCA history”: a report cataloguing “catastrophic failures across 45 farms assured by the charity”.
Chris Packham, the RSPCA President, then urged the charity to suspend its RSPCA Assured scheme. Will it? Do retailers and consumers still trust it? What could take its place?
Amidst “an utter scandal” for the RSPCA, on 9 June Animal Rising released covert footage from over 40 UK farms which the charity’s animal welfare scheme assured as “high welfare”.
Dead chick, Photo: Animal Rising
The report alleges: “We have found pigs lying dead in the middle of pen aisles. Chicks dead from dehydration and starvation. Salmon and trout with eyes and body parts missing. Laying hens having lost their feathers from distress. Sheds holding up to 64,000 chickens at a time.
“Publicly, the RSPCA claims to be against intensive farming. Yet they continue to put their stamp of approval on these farming methods through their assurance scheme.”
Rose Patterson, Animal Rising Co-Director said: “This investigation has blown the lid off the RSPCA’s dirty secret; it is happy to rubber stamp cruelty on factory farms and industrial animal abuse. Some of the scenes we’ve seen in the sheds endorsed by the RSPCA are beyond barbaric.
“The world’s oldest and most respected animal charity has clearly lost its way. The work they do for cats, dogs, and other animals is evidently not making its way to others like chickens and pigs. As the charity nears its 200th birthday it has a choice to make; will it step up, protect animals, and drop the Assured Scheme?”
The RSPCA’s 200th birthday weekend was overshadowed by controversy as 100 protestors gathered at the RSPCA HQ in Horsham to voice their opposition to the RSPCA Assured food labelling scheme.
Chris Packham
The RSPCA President, Chris Packham, called the footage “utterly indefensible”. The BBC Springwatch presenter told The Times: “I cannot sleep easily as the president of the RSPCA knowing that those pigs are out there in the dark, those chickens are in those sheds and those salmon are swimming around with no eyes.”
He suggested that customers who are buying meat and fish under the RSPCA banner at supermarkets are being misled. “I know you are going to ask me whether [these RSPCA Assured schemes] are deliberately misleading or defrauding the public because they come with a brand which implies that there is a standard of welfare that the public would expect,” he said. “What we’ve seen in that footage is not a standard of welfare that any member of the public would accept. It’s not acceptable.”
A catalyst for change?
In response, an RSPCA spokesperson told us: “We are proud to have Chris Packham, a passionate campaigner for animals, as our president and, while we don’t always agree on everything, we share his desire to create a better world for all animals. The RSPCA has been working to improve the lives of farmed animals for 200 years but we know there is still more to do.
“Any concerns about welfare on RSPCA Assured farms are taken extremely seriously, and RSPCA Assured is acting swiftly to look into these allegations. After receiving the footage, RSPCA Assured launched an immediate, urgent investigation.
“RSPCA Assured’s specially trained animal welfare assessors have already visited the vast majority of the farms and have been able to verify some are not members of the RSPCA Assured scheme. Visiting the farms is just one stage of our investigation process and our enquiries are ongoing. If we find any evidence to suggest systemic issues, we will carry out a review to ensure the integrity of the scheme.
“RSPCA higher welfare standards have been independently proven to make lives better for millions of animals every year. It means salmon have compulsory veterinary health welfare plans, and stocking density is half that seen in America.
“Every member of the RSPCA Assured scheme, which is non-profit and the UK’s only animal-welfare focussed assurance scheme, receives an annual assessment by highly-trained specialist assessors and may be subject to additional spot checks. Last year less than 1% of members had breaches significant enough to warrant suspension or withdrawal from the scheme.
“While the majority of people (94%) still choose to consume animal products, it is the right thing for us to work to improve the lives of animals on farms now. There is currently no specific legal protection for salmon, trout, turkeys, dairy cattle, beef cattle and sheep, and without our standards, many millions of farm animals would live worse lives. If we stepped back from RSPCA Assured, we risk leaving millions of farmed animals with even less protection.”
On the salmon sector, the charity said: “Salmon farming is an industry that involves billions of sentient individual fish and the RSPCA and RSPCA Assured are deeply concerned about the many challenges it faces. We are working hard with RSPCA Assured members, the salmon industry, and other experts to find ways to address these challenges as we move forward.
“Salmon producers have to meet over 700 species specific welfare standards, which are far above the minimum legal standards, to qualify for RSPCA Assured membership. The standards have been a catalyst for change throughout the entire salmon industry with most farms now adopting these standards.
“We made veterinary health and welfare plans compulsory and the rest of the industry has followed. Our stocking density was always set at 15kg/m3. This has now encouraged much of the industry to follow suit by lowering their stocking densities. We introduced a ‘15 second rule’ which means fish can only be removed from water for as short a period as possible during any handling procedures such as grading and not removed for more than 15 seconds.
“We introduced water quality requirements designed specifically to help promote good skeletal growth. In 2010 we wrote the first set of guidelines to help ensure the welfare of cleaner fish used to help control sea lice – the only standards for cleaner fish that exist in any assurance scheme. We have also improved handling procedures, such as grading, the transport of fish using wellboats and slaughter standards by eliminating manual slaughter methods.
“This year, in 2024, the new salmon standards made CCTV mandatory for the whole slaughter process and prohibited asphyxiation and carbon dioxide gassing (and other inhumane methods) as methods of slaughter.
Animal Justice Project demonstration
“In addition to this, the new standards introduced over 80 new cleaner fish welfare standards as well as requirements for regular welfare outcomes assessments to be conducted. The new welfare standards also featured standards that are the first of their kind in any assurance scheme and made significant changes to the administration of non-medicinal treatments, such prohibiting fish undergoing more than one non-medicinal treatment in a 28 day period, unless advised by a veterinarian.
“If it wasn’t for the RSPCA choosing to work with the salmon farming industry these, and many other significant welfare improvements, would never have been made.”
Salmon Scotland said it was happy to contribute to the RSPCA’s recently revised standards which update existing requirements and add new ones which reflect modern salmon farming best practice. Virtually all Scottish salmon farms are independently certified by RSPCA Assured, which requires stocking densities no greater than 98.5% water to 1.5% fish when the fully grown, it said.
Are major UK supermarkets standing by RSPCA Assured? Andrew Opie, Director of Food & Sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, told us: “All major UK food retailers take their responsibilities to animal welfare very seriously and ensure it is a key part of the production standards for all the meat they sell. RSPCA is one of the standards used by British supermarkets and grocers as part of their commitment to be global leaders in animal welfare.”
