This metric is part of Eticonsum's research study on the evaluation of companies in the Retail Food sector on environmental, social and ethical issues.
Eticonsum is a non-profit market research agency specialising in ESG (environment, social, governance) corporate performance applied to consumer insights.
We research and analyse the ethical market in the FMCG sector and evaluate the environmental and social performance of companies in order to help both conscious consumers to decide according to their values and companies to compete on ethical reputation.

With this metric we aim to show and compare the management of the main distributors in Spain with regard to the treatment of animals, focusing mainly on the following aspects:

- The communication of a specific and comprehensive policy on Animal Welfare.
- The requirements to their own brand suppliers
- Responsible use of antibiotics
- Their requirements on the animal treatment of their non-food products.
- Their offer of eggs not from caged hens
- its policy on common malpractice (premature death of male chickens)
- Its initiatives to encourage the reduction of meat consumption
- Their offer of products free of animal abuse (vegetarian, organic).

This spectrum of criteria and questions covers aspects that in principle are not covered by animal welfare certifications or can be fulfilled by companies without necessarily reaching the overall scope of requirements to obtain a label.
For example, many companies can develop a specific policy such as eliminating eggs from caged hens from their product range, have a wide range of vegan alternatives, demand animal welfare policies from their suppliers, invest in projects to improve animal welfare, etc. and not have a specific certification.