Paris raises a glass to Award winners

25 October 2012

Fresh from the success of the UK Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards in September, Compassion held another evening of celebrations on 25th October in Paris.

The Tapis Rouge was the venue for the European Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards where a host of businesses from across Europe and beyond were awarded for their current policies and commitments to improve the welfare of farm animals.

The evening was hosted by French TV and radio presenter and animal expert, Natacha Harry, and Laurence Bonafos represented the European Commission as one of the guest speakers.

She said: "As a vet and animal lover, animal welfare is more than a preoccupation; it is part of my daily work. I'm delighted to host Compassion's Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards and to see so many European brands concretely working towards higher animal welfare. I think it's extremely encouraging to see these leading food companies taking such important steps which will improve millions of animals' lives every year.''

The Awards comprise the Good Egg Award, the Good Chicken Award, the Good Dairy Award and new for 2012, the Good Pig Award, which encourages higher welfare systems for both sows and meat pigs. Awards were presented across all the categories and winners this year included household names such as Burger King, M&S France and Ben & Jerry's.

More than 287 million hens, chickens, dairy cows and calves and pigs are now set to benefit each year as a result of all of our award winners' policies

This year, at the EU Awards, Compassion introduced a new special recognition award to three of its key partners to acknowledge the significant impact each has made on farm animal welfare over a number of years. The European Leader Award reflected the fact that each winner is committed to working across more than one award category; they are demonstrating continuous improvement in farm animal welfare as part of their corporate social responsibility strategy and that they continually promote their awards and farm animal welfare as part of their marketing and communications activities.

The three winners of the European Leader Award were Unilever, IKEA and Coop Italia.

Steve McIvor, Director of Food Business, who co-hosted the night said:

"We are particularly delighted to recognise the winners of our European Leader Award this year. They are making a real impact on farm animal welfare in their respective marketplaces and are helping us to broaden the international reach of our programme, which is having a positive impact on an increasing number of farm animals across the globe. We would like to congratulate all of our winners for the huge difference they are making."