Pork producers have been spuriously asserting that a California law allowing farmed animals room to move their limbs will spell the end of bacon. This blog presents survey data showing that grocery stores, restaurants, foodservice companies, and pork producers are in fact prepared to comply with the law when it goes into effect on January 1.
For decades, animals raised for food have been denied even minimum legal protections extended to other animals. They are excluded from the very definition of “animal” in the Animal Welfare Act—our main federal animal protection statute—and most state cruelty-to-animals laws contain carve-outs reducing their applicability to farmed animals.
Over the last decade, states have been stepping up to begin filling this legal void by banning some of the cruelest forms of confinement that dominate our current food system: gestation crates, where female pigs used to supply the pork industry spend their entire pregnancies, unable to even turn around; veal crates, where male calves who are otherwise useless byproducts of the dairy industry—because, like humans, cows don’t produce milk unless they give birth—are kept to prevent muscle development and keep their flesh tender; and battery cages, where egg-laying hens are crammed so tightly they have less than a letter-sized sheet of paper to live out their entire lives.
To date, fourteen states have banned one or more of these cruel confinement systems. California made history in 2018 when its voters approved Prop 12, prohibiting not only these confinement systems within its borders, but also the in-state sale of products made using them. Now, after a more than three-year phase-in period, the full law will go into effect in less than a month, on January 1, 2022. So significant is this development that it has earned a spot on the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law’s soon-to-be-released Top-Ten Watchlist for 2022. At the same time, the requirements are decidedly modest. As I recently told National Geographic, “It’s really telling about how woefully inadequate our legal protections are. Something that gives [pregnant pigs and calves] enough space to turn around is the most celebrated protection for these animals.”
Nevertheless, Big Meat—and especially the pork industry, which is dominated by just four multinational, multibillion dollar corporations—has been publicly bemoaning the exceedingly basic requirement that, if producers opt to sell their products in California, they must allow the pigs those products come from to turn around, and investing untold millions in losing litigation challenging the law. If one were to believe the scare-mongering that our media outlets have been fueling, the implementation of Prop 12 “could mean the end of bacon” in California.
But can that really be the case? That the simple requirement that products sold in California come from animals afforded enough space to stand up, lie down, turn around, and extend their limbs makes it impossible to feasibly continue using these animals to produce food? If that’s true, our food system is even more broken than I thought.
As it turns out, it’s not true. Contrary to the few but loud voices screaming that the sky will fall if chickens, pigs, and calves are given enough space to move their legs, my review of web research and direct outreach surveys indicates that California grocery and restaurant chains, as well as foodservice suppliers, are prepared to comply with Prop 12—while still selling bacon and other impacted animal products. In fact, Kroger, which also owns Ralph’s, Food 4 Less, and more than a dozen other grocery chains and holds one of the largest grocery market shares in the state, first acknowledged the importance of moving away from gestation crates nearly a decade ago, following an undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals. And even before Prop 12 passed, after a petition from World Animal Protection, the company committed to phasing out gestation crates in its supply chain nationwide.
More than a dozen other grocery chains have expressed their preparedness to comply with the law, including Cardenas Markets; Costco, which says it has been working with its suppliers for the last year to ensure its products are Prop 12 compliant; Gelson’s Market, which says it has secured a “great partner” to supply Prop 12-compliant products; Grocery Outlet; New Leaf Community Markets; Nugget Markets; Raley’s; Save Mart; Stater Bros. Markets; WinCo Foods; and numerous others.
"[Can] the simple requirement that products sold in California come from animals afforded enough space to stand up, lie down, turn around, and extend their limbs make it impossible to feasibly continue using these animals to produce food? If that’s true, our food system is even more broken than I thought."
More than a dozen foodservice suppliers and restaurant chains are similarly prepared, including Aramark, which supplies food for schools, hospitals, stadiums, universities, prisons, and jails across the state, and Birite Foodservice, whose December New Item Flyer boasts eight different “Prop 12 Approved” pork products (as well as Impossible ground veggie pork and Violife vegan cheese shreds). Restaurants on the list include FAT Brands Inc., which owns eight franchise lines, including Fat Burger and Johnny Rockets; In & Out Burger; Lemonade; Pieology; Slater’s 50/50, who succinctly responded, when asked about its preparedness to comply with Prop 12, “of course, it’s the law”; Sweetgreen; Togo’s; and more.
But here’s where it gets really interesting: Despite all the fear-mongering, many pork producers are also ready to comply with the law—including members of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and North American Meat Institute (NAMI), which have devoted significant resources toward challenging the law and proclaiming compliance with it untenable, rather than toward encouraging compliance. Hormel, a NAMI and NPPC member and one of the top pork producers in the nation, says that it will be prepared to fully comply with the law when it goes into effect, that one of its product lines was already compliant, and that it “faces no risk of material losses from compliance with Proposition 12.” Tyson, another top pork producer and NAMI and NPPC member, similarly made clear its preparedness at a recent earning conference, noting that it wouldn’t be significantly impacted and that it is aligning suppliers to ensure compliance. And NAMI member Perdue’s Niman Ranch not only says its network of 750 farmers is already “fully compliant” with Prop 12—it also filed an amicus brief opposing a legal assault on Prop 12, underscoring that Prop 12 “compliance is straightforward and economically feasible, and that certain industry leaders have already implemented and satisfied compliance requirements.” Perdue’s Coleman Natural Foods likewise notes that it already has Prop 12-compliant products, and that “[t]his supply will dramatically increase over the coming months to meet the demands of customers in California.” NAMI member Clemens, duBreton, Vande Rose Farms, and others have also publicly announced they are fully prepared to comply with the law.
Even Spronk Brothers—whose managing partner is past NPPC president Randy Spronk, who previously attested that Prop 12 compliance would be too costly and that he would thus be unable to sell in California and lose business—now says he is outfitting “part of” the facility “to comply with Prop 12”—and already has a processor committed to buying the pigs. It’s notable that the company is only converting “part of” its facility, as this belies suggestions that Prop 12 requires wholesale conversions and highlights that pork producers are capable of producing multiple product lines, and thus that choosing to sell in California doesn’t require them to convert their entire production. Tyson similarly recently underscored that it “can do multiple programs simultaneously, including Prop 12.”
Indeed, just this week, livestock analyst and commodity broker Dennis Smith reported for industry publication National Hog Farmer that “CA Prop 12 is not going to present a major disruption to pork distribution and pork pricing.”
And so it turns out that yet again meat producers have lied to the American public. It’s high time we learn to be wary of overwrought proclamations by profit-focused corporate interests and begin to recognize that it is possible to afford legal protections to farmed animals—something Vermont Law School students get to learn in depth through our new Animal Law Program.
Delcianna Winders is a visiting associate professor of law and director of the Animal Law Program at Vermont Law School.