Wal-Mart's push on animal welfare hailed as game changer
Source: AP-Excite
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO
NEW YORK (AP) Wal-Mart's push to get its suppliers to give farm animals fewer antibiotics and more room to roam is expected to have a big impact on the food industry, experts say.
Though the steps are voluntary, Wal-Mart, which sells more food than any other store, has a history of using its retail muscle to change the way products are made and sold across the retail industry.
Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that it's asking meat producers, eggs suppliers and others to use antibiotics only for disease prevention or treatment, not to fatten their animals, a common industry practice.
The guidelines also aim to get suppliers to stop using pig gestation crates and other housing that doesn't give animals enough space. They're also being asked to avoid painful procedures like de-horning or castration without proper painkillers.
FULL story at link.
FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2013, file photo, customers walk outside of a Wal-Mart store in San Jose, Calif. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest food retailer, is urging its thousands of U.S. suppliers to curb the use of antibiotics in farm animals and improve treatment of them. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150522/us--wal-mart-animal_welfare-467f8575a2.html
We won't shop there or at Sam's. But welcome them doing this.
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)nice to animals?
Doesnt torture them like we know George W Bush did, their fave president?
shenmue
(38,506 posts)okasha
(11,573 posts)840high
(17,196 posts)msongs
(67,441 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Voluntary = never.
katmondoo
(6,457 posts)I hate just going into that store. I cannot believe they are the biggest food retailer.
LiberalArkie
(15,728 posts)they could get employment. This include a lot of handicapped people, people who do not have a high intellect. At one of the Walmarts stop by to get my organic milk and eggs, they have people who have been there over 20 years. Sure they do not make $15 an hour, but a lot of the employees would not even have a job. I have seen them loose a lot of good workers probably because of pay. I hope they are waking up to reality a little bit.
DirtyHippyBastard
(217 posts)A vague empty suggestion that basically amounts to nothing, but this is what I have come to expect from the good people at wally world.
Next up, a non-binding promise to not close stores because of faulty plumbing when the workers threaten to unionize.
Bonhomme Richard
(9,000 posts)do good.
Snow Leopard
(348 posts)nt
eggplant
(3,913 posts)This costs Wal-Mart NOTHING. Nada. Zip. 100% of the actual cost here would be borne by their suppliers.
This is their standard M.O. Become the biggest buyer from any given supplier so the supplier becomes beholden to them. (See http://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know and read how they screwed over Vlasic.)
Then they proceed to extract concession after concession from their supplier. Hey, don't like it? We'll go somewhere else, and you will lose nearly all of your annual sales overnight.
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)Every company has standards that their suppliers have to follow; Wal Mart is no different. If they can use their weight to get fewer drugs in our food, then more power to them. others may follow and do the same.
eggplant
(3,913 posts)They will be getting a product in higher demand (better food) for the same cost to them.
So, yes, I'm very happy that this will push the industry in the right direction, but don't credit WM for some sort of moral correctness here. This is all about money with them, not ethics.
7962
(11,841 posts)If I remember correctly it did get most milk producers to change the way they did things because WM sells more milk than anyone