Together for more animal welfare

Colruyt Group advocates for better living conditions for all animals intended for consumption, first and foremost for our private-label products. We achieve this in collaboration with our suppliers, industry organisations and public authorities.

You can read exactly what we mean by animal welfare in our definitions.

How does Colruyt Group improve animal welfare?

1. More animal welfare in our value chains

Animals are sentient beings, which is why we believe it is important to treat them with respect and safeguard their welfare. As a retailer, we strive for better living conditions for all animals intended for consumption - including by-products - and do so primarily for the products of our private labels. We are guided by the Five Domains Model published by Professor Mellor. This model consists of:

1. Nutrition

2. Physical environment

3. Health

4. Behaviour and interaction

5. Mental state

Of course, we observe the law, but we also carry out additional checks and formulate additional requirements in our specifications to guarantee these freedoms.

2. Together with every link in the chain

We improve animal welfare in close collaboration with our suppliers, and more broadly with the industry and the competent authorities. A few examples:

·        100% of the fresh meat and meat preparations from our private labels come from animals that have been stunned before slaughter.
·        We are selling an increasing amount of meat from chickens with better welfare standards, largely sourced from 16 Belgian poultry farmers who adhere to the Better Chicken Commitment criteria.
·        100% of our fresh rabbit meat comes from more animal-friendly park systems. Additionally, the rabbit meat at Colruyt, Okay and Solucious is 100% Belgian. To ensure sufficient supply, Spar partly imports park-raised rabbit meat from the Netherlands.
·        In 2023, Cru became the first Belgian retailer to introduce Crustastun technology to painlessly stun lobsters and crabs.

We also offer an assortment of organic meat and dairy products in our store formats. Organic legislation includes many additional animal welfare requirements.

3. Raising consumer awareness

More and more consumers, when buying animal products, are consciously taking into account how the animals have been raised and cared for. Through our varied assortment and transparent information, we want to give our customers tools to consume consciously, with attention to animal welfare. In this way, we want to create broad public support for animal welfare.