Awards recognize animal welfare and environmental achievements

The winners of this year’s Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards (GFAWAs) were revealed at a prestigious ceremony in London earlier today (June 15).

This year’s winners are truly international and, for the first time, include an award for introducing targets to reduce animal-sourced protein such as meat, eggs, or dairy – a vital step towards averting a climate catastrophe.

The GFAWAs, which we launched in 2007, recognize food businesses that make meaningful improvements to the lives of farmed animals, and the sustainability of their supply chains.

International achievement

This year’s awards celebrated winners in Europe, Asia, Scandinavia and South America. These include Compass Group (UK & IRE) which was the very first to receive Gold in the Planet Friendly Award category for a 2025 commitment to reduce its animal-sourced food by 25%. They have made a pledge to switch to 40% plant-based alternatives by 2030, with a further pledge that 70% of their top five categories will be sourced from regenerative agriculture by 2030.

In total, there were 27 Awards this year spanning the globe, which are set to benefit over 138 million animals each year.

Businesses stepping up their game

It’s great to see such a geographically-diverse group of winners this year, demonstrating that the message of farm animal welfare and food sustainability is resonating internationally, with retailers, food producers, and other businesses stepping up their game. It’s particularly exciting to see companies start to set targets to reduce meat and dairy consumption as this is so important to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enabling us to meet the Paris climate targets to avert disaster.

Ben Williamson, Executive Director, Compassion in World Farming USA

Winners across the globe

Social enterprise Hilltribe Organics Ltd (HTO) won the Sustainable Food and Farming small producer award for its work to sustain rural farming villages in Thailand with organic and regenerative agriculture.

Carrefour Brazil won Best Retailer Marketing Award for their in-store marketing campaign showing consumers the difference between conventional, cage-free, free-range, and organic eggs – and how each system impacts the welfare of hens.

Waitrose scooped Best Retailer Award for achieving the overall best score in the 2022 Supermarket Survey as well as the Best Retailer Innovation Award for their Qualitative Behavioral Assessment project which measures the emotional wellbeing of animals in the drive to continually improve their quality of life.

The win by Huevos Guillén, through its commitment to cage-free eggs, marked the first time that a major producer in Spain has received a Good Egg Award. They are the largest egg producer in the country and have committed to producing 100% of their eggs and egg products in cage-free systems by 2025, and have extended their commitment to phase out highly intensive combination systems – multi-tiered cages used to house hens that can severely restrict their movement.