ASPCA Introduces New Grocery List Tool to Help Consumers Avoid Factory-Farmed Food in Honor of the Fifth Anniversary of its Shop With Your Heart Program

Program continues to encourage the animal agriculture industry to end cruel factory farming practices amid growing consumer demands for higher-welfare food

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ASPCA

Nov 03, 2021, 13:21 ET

NEW YORK, Nov. 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- To coincide with the fifth anniversary of its Shop With Your Heart^® Program, the ASPCA^® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals^®) today announced the launch of a new tool called the Shop With Your Heart Grocery List, a searchable directory of welfare-certified animal products and plant-based alternatives. This new consumer resource joins a collection of dynamic guides available to the public as part of the organization's Shop With Your Heart program, which launched five years ago to inform consumers, food businesses and lawmakers about solutions that will improve the lives of animals raised for food in the United States. In addition to earlier functions that allowed users to sort food by product type and identify where each item was sold, the new Grocery List now also allows users to filter by plant or animal-based foods and, if animal-based, to further refine the results by how the animals were raised: in an indoor enriched environment, with outdoor access, or on pasture.

"Shopping with your heart is not about being perfect or about any single right way to eat, it's about recognizing our individual power to improve farm animals' lives," said Daisy Freund, vice president, ASPCA Farm Animal Welfare. "To achieve a world without factory farms, this movement needs to include everyone. The ASPCA's Grocery List is designed to help consumers, no matter what they eat, make choices that show animal agriculture that there is no place for animal cruelty in our food system."

With more than one million views in 2021 alone, the highly referenced Shop With Your Heart resources have proven to be essential for those seeking alternatives to factory-farmed products, whether plant-based or animal-based, with a meaningful ASPCA-recognized animal welfare certification. Shop With Your Heart has contributed to major progress for scores of farm animals over the last five years:

The number of animals raised under meaningful welfare-certified standards has doubled to more than 600 million annually.
Over 140 food companies offering welfare-certified products have been added to the new and revised Shop With Your Heart Grocery List, representing a 350% increase in the number of meaningfully higher-welfare products on the market.
The ASPCA has secured more than 200 public commitments from food companies to improve and audit animal welfare in their supply chains, which will impact hundreds of millions more animals over the next few years.
The vast majority of Shop With Your Heart users (92%) say that the program made them more motivated to avoid factory-farmed products with most having changed what they buy or how they shop for food.
More than three out of four (79%) Shop With Your Heart users report trying to reduce consumption of at least one type of animal product, with 84% finding it easier to identify alternatives to factory-farmed products using ASPCA resources.

The ASPCA collaborates with a spectrum of food companies from small farmers to large-scale producers, and independent businesses to corporations, helping each set progressive policies to improve the lives of farm animals. This year the ASPCA worked with national and regional brands to make the Better Chicken Commitment including Natural Grocers^®, CookUnity, EatThe80, and The Honest Kitchen^®. Some committed companies have reported progress or have fully achieved animal welfare goals, like Thrive Market, ButcherBox, Farmer's Fridge, Home Place Pastures, Happy Valley Meat Company, Square Baby^®, Cafe Spice^®, Alexandre Family Farm™, The Great American Turkey Co.^®, ICONIC^® Protein, The Honest Bison, Nugget's Healthy Eats, and more.

"Every food company with animal-derived products in its supply chain has an opportunity—and the responsibility—to make sure animals are treated with compassion," said Nancy Roulston, senior director of corporate policy and animal science, ASPCA Farm Animal Welfare. "Moving away from factory farming to more humane and sustainable practices is not just the right thing to do for animals, the environment and people in the food system, it's also the only logical way forward for businesses marketing to increasingly concerned and informed consumers."

The ASPCA will continue to help and encourage companies, certifications and lawmakers to move away from industrial practices that prioritize efficiency and economic gain over animals' wellbeing, environmental sustainability and public safety, and instead strive for a food system that is humane, healthy and resilient. To learn more about the ASPCA's work to help create a more humane and compassionate world for farm animals, visit ASPCA.org/ShopWithYourHeart.

About the ASPCA^®Founded in 1866, the ASPCA^® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals^®) was the first animal welfare organization to be established in North America and today serves as the nation's leading voice for vulnerable and victimized animals. As a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation with more than two million supporters nationwide, the ASPCA is committed to preventing cruelty to dogs, cats, equines, and farm animals throughout the United States. The ASPCA assists animals in need through on-the-ground disaster and cruelty interventions, behavioral rehabilitation, animal placement, legal and legislative advocacy, and the advancement of the sheltering and veterinary community through research, training, and resources. For more information, visit www.ASPCA.org, and follow the ASPCA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Media Contact: Alexander Craig
347-931-7886; [email protected]

SOURCE ASPCA