In response to criticism about its animal welfare policies, Tim Hortons released a video on YouTube last month illustrating how it is working with farmers and suppliers to ensure that eggs in its supply chain are produced humanely.
Curiously, the video uploaded to YouTube March 23 features interviews with Tim Hortons’ egg suppliers in Ontario, but the iconic restaurant chain was criticized this winter for its pork procurement policies.
In late February the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) asking Tim Hortons to modernize its operation and begin sourcing pork from farms that don’t use gestation crates.
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“People simply don’t support the lifelong confinement of farm animals in tiny crates,” said Matthew Prescott, food policy director for the HSUS farm animal protection division. “When it comes to addressing cruelty to animals, an issue that American consumers feel strongly about, Tim Hortons is severely lagging.”
The HSUS, which owns a small number of Tim Hortons’ shares, will submit a proposal at the company’s annual meeting in May, asking Tim’s to source its bacon and pork products from farms where pigs bred using gestation crates.
Basically, the HSUS would like Tim’s to follow McDonald’s lead. In February McDonald’s announced, jointly with the HSUS, that it will require its pork suppliers phase out sow stalls.
“McDonald’s wants to see the end of sow confinement in gestation stalls in our supply chain,” said Dan Gorsky, senior vice president of McDonald’s North America supply chain management. “There are alternatives that we think are better for the welfare of sows.”
In its 2012 Sustainability and Responsibility report, released April 3, Tim Hortons’ said it has revised its animal welfare policies, committing “to source one per cent of system-wide eggs from enriched-cage hen housing systems as well as to encourage the pork industry to move away from using gestation crates over time.”
A Tim Hortons’ spokesperson, Alexandra Cygal, said a definitive plan to buy pork from farms without sow crates would be financially prohibitive at this time.
“More than 70 per cent of breeding sows in the US are housed in gestation crates and estimates are unknown in Canada as the pork industry has been downsizing over the last several years. Making any kind of commitment at this time beyond continuing the dialogue with industry would be financially unsustainable to our restaurant owners, our suppliers and our family farm producers.”
With 4,009 restaurants in North America, including 714 in the U.S. as of January 1, 2012, Tim’s is the fourth largest publicly traded fast food restaurant chain in North America. Its animal welfare video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8g01HNlrRM.
