Waitrose to mandate electrical stunning for its prawns

The supermarket business, which is part of the John Lewis group, said the move reflected the importance of animal welfare to Waitrose’s values.

Farmed shrimp are typically killed by immersion in ice slurry. Animal rights organisations have long argued that this can be a cruel slaughter method, with many of the shrimp dying from suffocation.

Instead, the shrimp Waitrose sources will be stunned electrically as part of the slaughter process.

Recent years have seen increasing weight given to welfare issues for invertebrates like shrimp, lobsters and crabs. Waitrose has already eliminated the practice of eyestalk ablation – where one or both of a female shrimp’s eyestalks are removed in order to increase the production of eggs – and this latest move to electrical stunning is part of that drive.

A Waitrose spokesperson said: “Since 2023 we’ve been working with our suppliers to push our industry-leading welfare standards even higher by trialling electrical prawn stunning. We’ve committed to rolling this out to our entire supply chain by the end of next year, and this applies to all our farmed shrimp and prawns."

Tesco and its key seafood supplier, Hilton Group, recently committed to ending eyestalk ablation by 2026. Tesco and Hilton also say all their prawns will be humanely stunned, either electrically or thermally, by that time.

Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Ocado have adopted similar welfare policies.