Published 2/15/2019

Valentine’s Day may have been yesterday, but we’re still feeling the love…and it’s because another major food company has made big changes for chickens!

HelloFresh, the largest meal kit service in the U.S., just committed to better chicken—an important step that will lead to meaningful improvements in the lives of birds nationwide. Their new policy represents a major move in the right direction and includes a transition to healthier genetics, more room to roam, and access to critical enrichments that let birds be birds.

HelloFresh has committed to implement the following changes by 2024:

• Source only chicken breeds that are approved by Global Animal Partnership (GAP) as having higher welfare outcomes;
• Source only chickens that are given more space, per GAP’s standards;
• Ensure all chickens sourced have an improved environment, including litter, lighting and enrichment, per GAP’s standards;
• Source only chickens that are more humanely processed, through a multi-step, controlled-atmosphere system; and
• Demonstrate compliance with these standards via third party auditing.

HelloFresh joins meal kit giant Blue Apron (and companies in every sector of the food industry) in committing to higher welfare for chickens. Their announcement represents yet another significant blow to cruel factory farming, which has produced chickens bred to grow unnaturally large, unnaturally fast—meaning they often suffer from respiratory problems, heart attacks, and painful leg injuries. These birds are usually crammed into dark, dirty sheds by the thousands, deprived of even the simple luxury of a perch to rest on.

“We applaud HelloFresh for stepping up for chickens and doing the right thing for animals and consumers alike,” said Rachel Dreskin, US Executive Director of Compassion in World Farming. “This meaningful commitment represents crucial progress for the most farmed animal in America, and we look forward to working with HelloFresh as they work towards a higher welfare supply chain.”

Thanks to dedicated and generous supporters like you, change is on the horizon in our food system and millions of animals will benefit—and food companies like HelloFresh are at the forefront of this necessary shift. We can’t wait to see all the progress we can accomplish together in 2019!

You can encourage more companies to commit to giving farmed animals better lives by signing up for our action alerts, to take action when urgently needed: