Animal welfare – and, in particular, humane slaughter – have become hot-button issues in the food industry in response to consumer demand for ethically-raised foods.  The key federal agency charged with humane slaughter oversight is USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. With respect to livestock, USDA administers the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act (7 USC, 1901 – 1907) which requires livestock to be slaughtered in a humane manner.  With respect to poultry, there is no specific federal humane handling and slaughter statute tailored to birds, but USDA has published a notice encouraging the poultry industry to adhere to “Good Commercial Practices” (GCP) for bird handling – under the Poultry Products Inspection Act (administered by USDA), live poultry must be handled in a manner that is consistent with good commercial practices, which means they should be treated humanely.

On April 6, 2017, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) released a new report titled, “Humane Slaughter Update: Federal and State Oversight of the Welfare of Meat Animals at Slaughter” addressing the slaughter of livestock.  The report covers a six-year period, 2010 through 2015.  Noteworthy conclusions of AWI’s report include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The level of federal and state humane slaughter enforcement continues to rise, particularly with respect to the number of plant suspensions and threatened suspensions, for egregious humane handling and slaughter violations;

• The number of citations for less serious humane handling and slaughter offenses continues to increase under state enforcement;

• Although state enforcement is generally up overall, the level of enforcement varies dramatically by state;

• Repeat federal and state violators present a major enforcement problem; and

• Humane slaughter enforcement remains low in comparison to other aspects of food safety enforcement.

The report recommends that USDA, together with state departments of agriculture, should dedicate more resources to humane handling and slaughter activities and establish a policy of escalating penalties to address repeat violators.

It remains to be seen what, if any, impact this new AWI report will have on USDA and/or state enforcement activities in the area of humane handling and slaughter.