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Our Commitment

Animal welfare

At Lidl GB, we work hard to ensure that all animals in our supply chain live a good life. We do this through a wide range of actions, and our partnerships with organisations like Red Tractor and RSPCA Assured.

We’re proud of the strong relationships with British suppliers that we’ve cultivated through our lean buying practices. Importantly, championing British farming means that we can provide products with leading welfare standards, at an affordable price.

 

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Antibiotics

Our first Antibiotics Stewardship Policy aligns to the targets set by the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture (RUMA). Through these targets to reduce the use of antibiotics in our supply chain, we have started a project with The University of Glasgow School of Medicine, aiming to research the challenges and perceptions surrounding this topic.

Learn more about our stance on antibiotic use and our research project.

Product Certification

All our British fresh meat and poultry is assured by Red Tractor, a national assurance scheme that has standards across various practices including farm animal welfare. This standard goes above and beyond EU minimum requirements, in areas such as the lower stocking densities of our UK meat chicken farms and antibiotic usage. In Pigs, this standard ensures that 100% of our fresh pork supply chain is free from castration, that pigs have permanent access to environmental enrichment and that they are provided with adequate manipulable materials throughout their lives.

The RSPCA Assured logo is a third-party higher welfare certification that also spans across all our fresh meat and poultry categories. We currently have 24 RSPCA Assured products lines, however this number is continually growing.

You can find out more about all Our Partners.

Grass-fed Steak 

Our grass-fed steak is a premium steak line from dedicated farmers, and what makes it premium is that the stock is reared on a healthy diet of at least 70% grass & forage, with at least 180 days grazing per year.

Our farmers are paid a premium to support a farming process which is more sustainable for the planet.

Additional to this, the dedicated farmers who supply our Grass-Fed Range are British and are Red Tractor Farm Quality Assured. This Standard ensures that all animals are treated to the highest levels of animal welfare throughout their lifetime.

 

The Five Freedoms

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Learn more about our approach to animal welfare below.

The five freedoms

The five freedoms principle established by the Farm Animal Welfare Council underpins all of our work on this topic. To learn more, watch the video from Scotland's Rural College, where Emma Baxter, Senior Researcher explains what this means for animals in our supply chain.

Purchasing animal-based products responsibly

Many of our own-brand products contain raw materials that come from animals. We expect our suppliers to maintain high animal welfare standards throughout the production process. This includes ensuring access to pasture or outdoor areas for animals, in addition to meeting certain transport and ethical slaughtering requirements.

Increasing our free range offer

We’re sourcing more of our shell eggs and egg ingredients from cage free hens. Learn more below.

 

 

Raw materials - Eggs

Eggs

We have committed to selling 100% of our eggs from cage-free hens by 2025, and ensuring that all of our free range organic eggs are RSPCA Assured.

In the UK, two main systems are used in the production of eggs: enriched cages and free range. The conditions of these systems vary in terms on space, feeding and activity range. Lidl intends to phase out the eggs from caged hens, however we recognise the significant investment made by British egg suppliers in transitioning to enriched caged systems in 2012. We have therefore set timescales that are challenging yet realistic for the industry to achieve, while still meeting the expectations of our customers and the wider public. In addition to this, we offer a range of organics eggs, all of which are RSPCA assured.

We are committed to reporting progress against our cage-free target on an annual basis. The table below outlines the progress made by all shell eggs sold by Lidl GB.*

 

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CrueltyFree

 

Leaping Bunny

Lidl GB believes that cosmetic and household products should be cruelty free. We are proud to be Leaping Bunny approved. A global programme, Leaping Bunny requires cruelty free standards over and above legal requirements.

All of our own brand cosmetic and household products are approved under the Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny programme, the internationally recognisable gold standard for cruelty free products. We adhere to a fixed cut-off date policy and proactively monitor our suppliers to ensure that our products continue to adhere to the Leaping Bunny criteria through our supplier monitoring system which is independently audited.

For more information about Cruelty Free International, Leaping Bunny and Leaping Bunny criteria, please visit http://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org.

Our goals

  

our goals

Our partners

We’re proud to partner and engage in dialogue with our suppliers as well as Red Tractor, RSPCA, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), WWF and the NFU on how best to improve animal welfare in our supply chain.