Shop With Your Heart Grocery List

The ASPCA has identified three independent and meaningful welfare certification programs that ban unacceptable factory farming practices and provide a better life for animals through their standards and farm audits: Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Humane, and Global Animal Partnership . These certifications’ standards range from raising animals indoors with added enrichments , which the ASPCA considers to be baseline for better animal care, to outdoor access where animals have access to more space, fresh air, and sunlight, to pasture raised where animals have reliable access to space and growing vegetation – generally the highest welfare farming model.

The below chart shows where the ASPCA-recognized certifications fall with respect to these three types of higher welfare farming. Note that some certifications have multiple levels, different meanings for different species*. Some are strengthened by the presence of additional claims or certifications on the package, including Certified Grassfed by AGW (A Greener World) as an optional addition to Animal Welfare Approved or the Better Chicken Project for Global Animal Partnership certified chicken products. To learn more, visit www.aspca.org/labelguide .