Compassion in World Farming announced today it will be launching a pilot to help food businesses prepare for future protein markets. The project, called the Friendly Food Alliance, aims to bring food businesses and producers to the table to create innovative solutions for diversifying protein offerings. The Alliance will pilot solutions around how to remain relevant in a rapidly changing marketplace with regard to protein, and how to most effectively contribute to a healthy, sustainable food and farming system.
The overall aim of the project is to achieve a 25% reduction in the number of animals in a company’s supply chain by 2025.
Leah Garces, US Executive Director of Compassion in World Farming, says: “In the last ten years, we have worked with hundreds of corporate partners to improve the lives of one billion farmed animals by committing to cage-free eggs and higher welfare chickens. We are proud of what has been achieved. But in that same time ten billion more animals have entered factory farming due to rising population and associated demand for protein. This comes at a huge planetary cost.”
A recent paper published in Science concludes that reducing consumption of animal products is critical to reducing human environmental impacts. The new analysis shows that while eggs, aquaculture, meat, and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses an astounding 83% of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. The paper states that moving from current diets to excluding animal products has transformative potential, reducing food’s land use by 76% and GHG emissions by 49%, amongst other beneficial impacts.
“We must take seriously the limits of our planet’s resources. It is a simple math problem—we don’t have enough land and water to continue with animal agriculture at this level. The Friendly Food Alliance is about getting companies on track and prepared for exciting trends in protein consumption and our very sobering resource limitations,” continues Garces.
Compassion will recruit up to 10 companies for a one-year pilot. At the end of the year, we will bring the 10 pilot companies together to share what has been learned. Findings will be published and used to expand the project to a wider group of companies. Interested companies should apply here to be part of the pilot.
To recognize corporate efforts to reduce the number of animals in their supply chain, Compassion is also launching the Friendly Food Award. The three levels of the award—bronze, silver, and gold—will recognize 10%, 15% and 25% commitments to reduction in five years, respectively.
