Animal Welfare
We know our customers care about the way animals treated to produce the food we enjoy, so we actively collaborate with our farmers and suppliers to champion best practice, ensuring responsible care and continuous improvement every step of the way.
Each year we report on the standards, progress and performance of our livestock supply chains and you can find our latest update in our - Animal Health Welfare Report 2025
Our approach to animal welfare
We are committed to driving continuous improvement of animal health and welfare standards and practice responsible use of antibiotics.
Our approach is guided by internationally recognised frameworks, including the Five Freedoms and the Five Domains, which together inform our standards for humane and respectful treatment.
Ways we are working on improving animal health and welfare:
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We pay farmers in our Asda Dairy Group a premium to work to enhanced welfare standards. In our dairy supply chains, we have invested in supporting our Asda Dairy Farmers to work to enhanced welfare standards, for example all farms provide cows with indoor environmental enrichment in the form of cow brushes.
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Helping to transfer knowledge around animal health and welfare - a key focus of the Asda Beef and Lamb farmer groups.
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We collect outcome measure data from our suppliers allowing us to track progress on key welfare KPI’s.
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We are members of the Food Industry Initiative on Antimicrobials (FIIA) and through the British Retail Consortium, the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance (RUMA)
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We work with our suppliers to test and trial innovation in our supply chain to improve animal health and welfare.
Improving the welfare of laying chickens:
All Asda-brand shell eggs are produced in cage-free systems. We also use cage-free ingredient eggs* across our own-label products too, fulfilling commitments made back in 2016 and 2019.
*Cage-free ingredient egg is specified for the production of all Asda products. In the event that supply for a product is disrupted, e.g. due to avian influenza, we may temporarily allow for variation from this specification to maintain the supply of products for customers. However, we will always get back to cage free ingredient at the earliest availability.
Improving crustacean welfare:
Our supply chain for farmed prawns has already made significant progress through supporting innovation and research into best practice for prawn welfare and scaling adoption. We are committed to further progress and aim for all farmed prawns used in Asda products to be from ablation free broodstock by 2027.
We are also committed to optimising stunning for prawns by ending traditional practices of thermal shock and adopting electrical stunning, or methods that deliver better welfare outcomes where verified by independent research. This will start with white leg shrimp by 2028 and we are reviewing feasibility for implementation in black tiger prawns at the earliest opportunity.
