What could the animal welfare Nutri-score proposed by ANSES look like?

After the “Nutri-score” for the nutritional qualities of foods, towards an animal welfare label soon displayed on products? Faced with labeling which is “increasing in Europe”, the National Food Safety Agency (ANSES) made public this Thursday its proposals for possible future harmonized labeling at European level. These criteria appear in a vast report of nearly 300 pages, the result of three years of work, which involved around forty experts.

“No European legislation governs animal welfare claims or labeling,” explains ANSES in the introduction to its opinion. Certain rules only regulate information on production methods such as “organic farming” or the method of raising laying hens (“in cages”, “in the open air”, etc.). Nevertheless, there are various labelings at national level and/or for particular sectors, such as broiler chicken in France, but “without their specifications being comparable and sometimes verifiable, generating confusion and doubts among consumers », Estimates ANSES. The agency also points out that an animal welfare label already exists in France, and that “several others are under development”.

While the European Union plans to create harmonized labeling, ANSES took up the subject in September 2021, “to offer stakeholders in the livestock sectors a scientific basis on which this labeling could be based”. Like the Nutri-score, it could be made up of five levels, ranging from A for the best to E for the weakest. This last level corresponds to “sole compliance with the requirements imposed by European legislation in terms of animal welfare, whether for life in breeding, transport or slaughter”.

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That's it for the display. As for the criteria, ANSES recommends that the assessment focus primarily on "the state of welfare of the animal", with indicators recorded directly on the animal, and not only "breeding methods and means implemented to improve it” as is the case today. In detail, the organization recommends taking into account all stages of the animal's life, from breeding to slaughter including transport.

And she identified eight risk factors during each of these stages: genetic characteristics, breeding techniques, breeder practices, accommodation, feeding, steps implemented to ensure good animal health, limiting the use of stressful or painful practices and reproduction. For each factor, an evaluation protocol was proposed. “For example, for food, the criteria proposed are both that the animal has food that is easily accessible and adapted to its species and age, but also that it can satisfy its behavioral needs linked to food activity, such as grazing for ruminants, burrowing for pigs or even pecking and scratching for poultry,” develops ANSES.

Furthermore, “the assessment of animal welfare should not stop at food-producing animals,” believes the public establishment, which recommends also taking into account livestock breeding specialized in the improvement of genetic characteristics. and reproduction. “We cannot say that a production respects animal welfare if we know nothing about the living conditions of the previous generation,” declares Julie Chiron, expertise coordinator at Anses.

It remains to be seen whether this report will have real repercussions at the political level. At the Ministry of Agriculture, we only say we are in favor of labeling on a voluntary basis, report our colleagues from Le Monde. “The guidelines proposed by ANSES will be able to inform the work of stakeholders who want to implement such labeling,” the ministry indicates in the daily newspaper.