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 publicise and compare the policies adopted by leading retailers in Spain in their efforts to certify the animal welfare of their own-brand products.

The animal welfare seal allows consumers to identify food that has been produced under specific animal husbandry and handling conditions.
In recent years, consumer purchasing criteria have changed. They no longer only value aspects such as best-before date, nutritional value or food safety, but are increasingly interested in information on how animals are treated on farms and in livestock facilities.

Eurobarometer 2016 already indicated that 64% of Europeans (71% of Spaniards) demand more information on the conditions under which farm animals are reared. For this reason, there are increasing calls for common animal welfare labelling, which would better inform consumers about the different products on the market in this respect, as is already the case for eggs.
In the meantime, which we doubt at least in the short term, the most widely used and most widely used reference labels for animal welfare by companies are :

- Animal Welfare certified by AENOR. This independent certification, which follows the Welfare Quality protocol, is approved by the Instituto de Investigaci?n y Tecnolog?a Agroalimentarias (IRTA).

- Interporc Animal Welfare Spain (IAWS). Created by the Organizaci?n Interprofesional Agroalimentaria del Porcino de Capa Blanca (Interporc), this regulation guarantees the good practices in all the links of the value chain of this type of pig.

- ANDA. The seal of the National Association for the Defence of Animals certifies eggs from free-range and organic hens whose living and production conditions go beyond the minimum standards set by animal welfare legislation.

In this section we also consider the organic certifications of products of animal origin, which ensure good animal treatment in terms of rearing conditions for example (total freedom in the case of chicken and 81 days of growth, compared to 50 days for industrial chicken)