Founded in 2014 by Fons Smits and Laura Davenport, Tulip Tree Creamery in Indianapolis, Indiana, produces artisan cheeses using milk from a local dairy who raises cows in accordance with Certified Humane® standards, which means: no tie stalls, daily access to pasture and exercise areas, fresh wholesome feed without hormones or antibiotics, and a living environment that supports their ability to engage in natural behaviors.
“We want to show our customers that we do not just use any type of milk in our cheeses,” says Fons. “We care about how the animals are treated and how a farm is managed. We believe sourcing Certified Humane® products demonstrates that to our customers.”
Three times a week, the dairy delivers fresh raw milk that Tulip Tree Creamery pasteurizes to make their unique blend of cheeses. “All of our products are handmade using traditional European recipes with our own special twist to them,” says Fons.
Tulip Tree Creamery’s Certified Humane® cheeses are available throughout the Midwest and at local farmers markets in the Indianapolis area.
Tulip Tree Creamery’s co-founder, Laura, arrived in the dairy world by way of public health and biology. She was an educator in hospitals and for a health-related software company before moving working for dairy farms in 2004. Her focus at Tulip Tree Creamery is in sales, marketing, and education.
Fons grew up in the Netherlands, in the Northern Province of Friesland, a small village surrounded by lakes and canals as well as old villages and sprawling pasture-lands. While known for its dairy farms, Fons didn’t grow up on a farm, but was always so “fascinated with dairy products and everything you can make out of milk,” that he studied food science in the Netherlands for seven years with a specialization in dairy science.
Fons then took that knowledge and traveled all over the world developing small- to medium-sized dairy plants with a focus on cheese making.
Fons Smits makes Nettle Cheese, a mild cheese in texture to Chevre, made with cows milk, and covered with mint, sage and nettle leaves on the outside.
“My focus has always been on small-scale processing and the hands-on approach,” says Fons. “Being able to be involved from start to finish in developing a product or creamery, or making a product from taking the milk from the farm to selling it to a customer really was important to me.”
When Fons arrived in the U.S. in 2003, he helped develop several creameries in California and the Midwest, including a Certified Humane® creamery, which he says, was the inspiration for launching his own Certified Humane® creamery. While he focuses on the cheesemaking and developing the creameries unique cheese flavors, Fons says animal welfare remains an important consideration for his company.
Tulip Tree Creamery was named after the state tree in Indiana and a famous flower in the Netherlands, says Fons, bringing everything full circle.
“As a child, I never thought I would be traveling the world and coming to Indiana to make cheese,” he says. “But I really enjoy bringing these recipes from Europe to the U.S., and seeing how much people here enjoy these artisan cheeses.”
Tulip Tree Creamery’s Certified Humane® cheeses are available throughout the Midwest and at local farmers markets in the Indianapolis area. Fons says they love to interact and engage with the public. “We are always asking people what flavors they would like us to experiment with,” says Fons.
If you live in Indianapolis, Tulip Tree Creamery also offers cheesemaking classes for the public.
Leandro Pinto, founder and co-owner of Mantiqueira Farms, in the Mantiqueira Mountains in southeastern Brazil.
Granja Mantiqueira (Mantiqueira Farm), located primarily in the Mantiqueira Mountains in southeastern Brazil, started as a small family farm in 1987. Over the next three decades, it has become the largest egg producer in South America – and the 12th largest egg producer in the world.
Leandro Pinto, founder and co-owner of Mantiqueira Farms, believes it was his destiny to become a poultry farmer. As a child, Leandro’s family raised chickens in the backyard, and his father sold eggs and made fertilizer from the chicken waste to sell to nearby families and businesses.
But Leandro had an entrepreneurial spirit and looked for other ways to make a living. As a young teen, he worked as a shoe shine boy and messenger, and at the local car wash. At 17, he started a small agricultural machine shop, but closed the business two years later because of his lack of experience and the economic unrest of the mid 80s in Brazil. That’s when he saw an opportunity to operate an egg laying business.
A friend in a nearby town had a heart attack and offered Leandro the option of taking over his egg farm. Leandro didn’t have money to buy a farm, but he sold his car and truck and purchased the friend’s 30,000 chickens and signed a contract to rent his barns. Leandro was in business with a few nearby restaurants and bakeries already established as clients.
Like most budding entrepreneurs, Leandro did everything on the farm, from taking egg orders, feeding and taking care of the laying hens, and loading the eggs onto the delivery trucks. His wife, Rogéria, a physiotherapist, helped in her spare time, but Leandro worked day and night to build his business.
“I didn’t get much rest those first two years,” says Leandro. “In fact, it took three days to fill up one little egg truck.”
In 1989, political instability and an economic crisis in Brazil put many farmers out of business. Food production dropped off, and food shortages resulted. Leandro was one of the few farms to survive and thrive, thanks to his already lean operations. Mantiqueira Farm took over the market share of egg sales and used the increased revenue to expand his operations.
By 1990, Mantiqueira Farms had 100,000 laying hens on the farm still run on a non-automated system. But Leandro was interested in the latest and most modern techniques and facilities for his barns, so in 1996, after visiting equipment manufacturers in Europe, Leandro introduced a new automated production system that would speed up egg production. “From the moment, the chicken lays the egg through to the final packaging, no one on the farm had to touch the egg,” says Leandro.
In the mid 1990´s, when Carlos Cunha, the owner of a supermarket chain in Brazil started buying Mantiquieras’ eggs, Leandro felt he was in a good place with his business. But Cunha sold the supermarkets a few years later, and Leandro had no guarantee that sales would continue to grow for his largest client. Undaunted, Leandro convinced Carlos to invest in his company, and three years later, his farm went from laying 400,000 eggs a day to 2.4 million eggs a day. Leandro and Carlos have been partners ever since.
The next step for the partners was to introduce a cage-free system. “We also look for ways to introduce innovations and follow world trends in the egg industry,” says Leandro. “We saw the importance of switching to a cage-free production system since that is what consumers want.”
While researching cage-free operations, Leandro came across Humane Farm Animal Care and the Certified Humane® program. “We felt Humane Farm Animal Care could guide us in setting up a cage-free system,” he says. “We also see the value of their program in validating our program. By becoming Certified Humane®, we could offer even more guarantees and assurances to the consumers about how our chickens are raised.”
The portion of Mantiqueira Farms that is currently Certified Humane® will produce eggs for the Happy Eggs brand and Taeq, the brand produced for Pão de Açúcar supermarkets in Brazil. “Under this system, the birds are calm and docile with freedom to move around and express their natural behaviors, such as climbing on perches,” says Leandro. “The achievement of the animal welfare certification makes us very happy because it ensures we are on the right path in our cage-free production system.”
La Calera SAC is a family-owned business that produces eggs in Chincha, Ica, Peru. Founded by (Tayo) Estuardo Masias Marrou more than 40 years ago, La Calera is a family operated farm still run by Tayo, his wife, sons, and grandchildren, who all live on the farm, too.
As the largest egg producer in Peru with more than five million laying hens on their 350-hectare farm, they produce eggs for supermarkets, small stores, traditional markets, restaurants, and hotels nationwide. In fact, 98% of the eggs in supermarkets and 23% of Peru’s overall market share of eggs are from La Calera farms, making them an exciting addition to the Certified Humane® program. Currently, Heuvos de Gallina de Corral Humanitaro brand of eggs, available at Wong and Metro supermarkets, and their own La Calera Heuvos de Gallina de Corral Humanitaro brand, are Certified Humane®.
Tayo is committed, however to growing the Certified Humane® program and implementing Humane Farm Animal Care’s animal care standards on the rest of their farms throughout the country. Because most large farms are actually a collection of small farms located in different regions, HFAC will certify an individual farm in a farm business only if it is geographically separate from the other farms in the program. HFAC uses third-party inspectors to conduct traceability audits to ensure eggs that are Certified Humane only come from Certified Humane farms.
Tayo’s family has farmed in Peru for more than 200 years and acquired more than 2,000 hectares of farm land during that time. After the Agrarian Reform (the redistribution of land) in 1969, however, the family farm was reduced to just 80 hectares. Tayo needed to make a living on the much smaller farm, so with the little money he had left, he purchased 3,000 laying hens and launched a small egg production business with four employees. Today, La Calera provides jobs to more than 2,500 families.
“I used to be the one picking up the eggs and running everything on the farm,” says Tayo. “It´s amazing how things have evolved. I am very passionate about this work,” says Tayo.
Tayo quickly learned how to raise hens in the Chincha environment, a somewhat desert-like climate with little rain and moderate temperatures all year-round.
“We raise the hens ourselves and only select the genetically best hens for egg laying production,” says Tayo.
“We give them space to run around and have as much freedom as they can.”
When Tayo learned about the Certified Humane® program in 2012, he decided the program fit his farm’s focus of animal care and would meet the demands of consumers who wanted verification on how farm animals are raised.
“We make a great commitment to take care of our animals and their environment,” says Tayo. “Part of that philosophy is giving the best life we can to the hens. We already follow all the practices set out by the Certified Humane® program, so it made sense to add that label to our egg products, so consumers would know that too.”
It could take a few years, but La Calera is committed to adding more farms to the Certified Humane program. All farms producing Certified Humane products are inspected at least once a year.
La Calera’s commitment to animals and the environment also reverberates into the community. In addition to providing 2,500 jobs for residents, the farm also helps single moms working on the farm by providing on-site day care. They also have built 900 houses for their employees, who where homeless after the 2007 earthquake, and sponsored the city’s first bilingual school.
“We care very much about the welfare of both people and animals on our farm,” says Tayo.
BRF– one of the largest food companies in the world – joined the Certified Humane® program in 2016 for some of their integrated chicken farms in Goiás (Midwest Brazil) and some turkey farms in Santa Catarina (Southern Brazil) to fully demonstrate their commitment to animal welfare to their consumers. In 2017, the chicken project was renewed with the integrated farms, and a new chicken project was certified in Mato Grosso state (Midwest Brazil). BRF produces chicken and pork products sold under the Sadia, Perdigão and other recognized brands. Sadia is the leading chicken and processed food brand offered to the Brazilian market.
“BRF is improving the lives of millions of birds under the Certified Humane® Brasil program,” said Luiz Mazzon, Director of Certified Humane® in South America. “We expect this program to continue to grow as more and more consumers demand humanely-raised food.”
Headquartered in Middleburg, Virginia, Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC), which launched in 2003, introduced the Certified Humane® program in South America in 2011. The Brazilian office is responsible for overseeing the expansion of the Certified Humane® program and the certification of farms and food animal producers under the Certified Humane® Raised and Handled label in South America.
BRF ranks as one of the ten most innovative companies in the world, according to Forbes Magazine, and one of the 100 most sustainable on the planet, according to the Global Compact 100 Stock Index, which recognizes companies committed to the incorporation of UN Global Compact principles within their business models.
Animal welfare is an essential part of BRF’s culture and strategy and carries out actions towards the humane treatment of animals in all stages of the production process. Since 2014, when BRF signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the NGO World Animal Protection (WAP), the company has been identifying opportunities for improvement and key trends and practices that improve animal welfare.
“Animal welfare for BRF is not a temporary program, but a real cause they work on at multiple levels within the organization,” says Mazzon. BRF’s commitment to animal welfare is an integral component of the company’s ethical principles, which allows for improvements in the working environment and the human-animal relationship. “We have a team of ambassadors called “Animal Welfare Officials,” who are trained to ensure compliance with these guidelines, commitments, and targets,” says Hugo Urso, Agriculture Director at BRF. “The program includes the assessment of improvement gaps and opportunities, with short-, medium- and long-term plans formulated to ensure the attainment of our goal of maximizing animal welfare.”
According to Urso, BRF maintains a strict policy of zero-tolerance towards animal mistreatment, whether by abuse or negligence. It also relies on standards to provide guidance on best practices that range from the poultry farm to humane slaughter, emergency plans, and transportation. With these company-wide commitments in place, BRF Sadia wanted to take the next step and become part of Certified Humane’s international certification program, which not only outlines humane standards of care the company must follow, but provides third-party independent inspections and audits to ensure compliance of these standards are being met for consumers. “In joining the Certified Humane® program, BRF wants to positively transform its entire global chain by acting even more ethically and responsibly,” says Josiane Busatta, Quality Assurance Specialist at BRF. “Its core activity is producing animal proteins, so animal welfare is naturally one of the great causes we advocate not only within our company, but also outside the BRF universe. Certified Humane® is the most internationally-recognized certification program focused on animal welfare. To be certified by this organization is to have a serious seal for our proposal and program.”
BRF participates in animal welfare discussions at industry organizations, such as the Brazilian Animal Protein Association (ABPA), Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA), and its research arm, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa). They also share their technical knowledge, make financial contributions, and support scientific congresses on the topic of animal welfare at top universities, such as the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil.
Under the Certified Humane® program, BRF must follow HFAC’s precise Animal Care Standards for the humane treatment of farm animals raised for food production and consent to third party inspections and audits to ensure compliance with the Certified Humane® program. Through the program, farm animals must receive a nutritious diet without preventive use of antibiotics, hormones or animal by-products and must be raised with shelter, resting areas and space sufficient to support natural behaviors, like spreading their wings, perching on posts, and living cage-free lives. Adele Douglass, Founder and CEO of HFAC, says BRF’s commitment to humane farm animal care will resonate with other food producers and farms around the world. “Having one of the largest food companies in the world commit to raising their animals Certified Humane® shows that any producer of any size can commit to raising farm animals humanely,” she says. “BRF will set a high bar that other food producers and farmers will want to follow.”
Ecoterra is the first egg producer in Chile to promote the welfare of laying hens.
Ecoterra, a farm in Paine, Santiago, Chile that produces eggs, is the first farm in Chile to join the Certified Humane® program.
Launched in 2011, Ecoterra had a goal of changing industrialized agricultural systems in Chile to systems more in harmony with animals and the environment.
“Our goal is, and always has been, to create harmony between what the earth gives us and the way we produce our eggs, going back to what is natural for the animals and sustainable for the environment and integrating our local communities in the process,” says Founder and President Pablo Andres Albarrán Lama.
Albarráns parents were in banking and industry, so he says he’s “a first-generation farmer who simply loves animals and the environment.” He studied agricultural engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Santiago, Chile, before finishing his degree at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His thesis was on free-range systems and was the foundation for the animal welfare and environmental farm model he would eventually set up under the Ecoterra brand.
Founder and President Pablo Andres Albarrán Lama launched Ecoterra (“Eco” representing “ecology” and “terra” representing “earth”) with the goal of raising “free-range hens as close to nature as possible.”
After college, Albarrán returned to Chile, leased nine acres of land and 2,000 laying hens, and launched Ecoterra (“Eco” representing “ecology” and “terra” representing “earth”) with the goal of raising “free-range hens as close to nature as possible,” says Albarran. “We recognize animal behaviors and do a lot to make the hens happy. We have perches and scratching areas on pasture and in the barn. Our hens are free from cages and can develop their natural behaviors inside and outside of the henhouse. They are outside on pasture all day where they can dig, flap their wings, dustbathe, sleep, perch, and rest. Their vegetable diet is supplemented with insects that they find in our broad meadow plants.”
Within a few years, Albarrán realized the animal welfare system he set up on his farm was suddenly in high demand in the marketplace. “I could see the market was changing and people were starting to care about farm animals and their humane treatment,” says Albarrán.
But some of the eggs on the market were not meeting the high welfare standards he was implementing on his farm. “They were using words like “cage-free,” but they were not backed by any set of standards,” he said.
Ecoterra hens are outside on pasture all day where they can dig, flap their wings, dustbathe, sleep, perch, and rest. Their vegetable diet is supplemented with insects that they find in Ecoterra’s broad meadow plants.
Consumers can download the Certified Humane® app, which is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, to find nearby stores that sell Certified Humane® products. For more information on HFAC and the Certified Humane® label, visit www.certifiedhumane.org.
As the first egg producer in Chile to promote the welfare of laying hens, Albarrán wanted his animal welfare system to mean something to consumers. “With so many supermarket chains and competitors, we were looking for a certification program that explained to the consumer what we were doing for the animals,” said Albarrán. “I saw the Certified Humane label on products in Brazil, Canada and the U.S. and learned about it. I realized through its standards and inspection process that the label would verify for the consumer the animal welfare work that we do every day.”
Ecoterra eggs can be found in more than 500 grocery stores in Chile, including Wal-Mart, as well as restaurants, hotels and via e-commerce.
Under their additional fair trade certification, they also work in alliance with local farms that produce eggs under the same Ecoterra system and same Certified Humane standards to help local farmers make a more sustainable living. “Something a small farmer could not do on their own,” says Albarrán. “We’re helping them become entrepreneurs who can become sustainable environmentally and economically, and we’re helping them implement animal welfare standards on their farms as well.”
Consumers can download the Certified Humane® app, which is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, to find nearby stores that sell Certified Humane® products. For more information on HFAC and the Certified Humane® label, visit www.certifiedhumane.org.
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Posted: January 24, 2018 by Certified Humane®
Tulip Tree Creamery
Tulip Tree Creamery – Indianapolis, Indiana
Founded in 2014 by Fons Smits and Laura Davenport, Tulip Tree Creamery in Indianapolis, Indiana, produces artisan cheeses using milk from a local dairy who raises cows in accordance with Certified Humane® standards, which means: no tie stalls, daily access to pasture and exercise areas, fresh wholesome feed without hormones or antibiotics, and a living environment that supports their ability to engage in natural behaviors.
“We want to show our customers that we do not just use any type of milk in our cheeses,” says Fons. “We care about how the animals are treated and how a farm is managed. We believe sourcing Certified Humane® products demonstrates that to our customers.”
Three times a week, the dairy delivers fresh raw milk that Tulip Tree Creamery pasteurizes to make their unique blend of cheeses. “All of our products are handmade using traditional European recipes with our own special twist to them,” says Fons.
Tulip Tree Creamery’s co-founder, Laura, arrived in the dairy world by way of public health and biology. She was an educator in hospitals and for a health-related software company before moving working for dairy farms in 2004. Her focus at Tulip Tree Creamery is in sales, marketing, and education.
Fons grew up in the Netherlands, in the Northern Province of Friesland, a small village surrounded by lakes and canals as well as old villages and sprawling pasture-lands. While known for its dairy farms, Fons didn’t grow up on a farm, but was always so “fascinated with dairy products and everything you can make out of milk,” that he studied food science in the Netherlands for seven years with a specialization in dairy science.
Fons then took that knowledge and traveled all over the world developing small- to medium-sized dairy plants with a focus on cheese making.
“My focus has always been on small-scale processing and the hands-on approach,” says Fons. “Being able to be involved from start to finish in developing a product or creamery, or making a product from taking the milk from the farm to selling it to a customer really was important to me.”
When Fons arrived in the U.S. in 2003, he helped develop several creameries in California and the Midwest, including a Certified Humane® creamery, which he says, was the inspiration for launching his own Certified Humane® creamery. While he focuses on the cheesemaking and developing the creameries unique cheese flavors, Fons says animal welfare remains an important consideration for his company.
Tulip Tree Creamery was named after the state tree in Indiana and a famous flower in the Netherlands, says Fons, bringing everything full circle.
“As a child, I never thought I would be traveling the world and coming to Indiana to make cheese,” he says. “But I really enjoy bringing these recipes from Europe to the U.S., and seeing how much people here enjoy these artisan cheeses.”
Tulip Tree Creamery’s Certified Humane® cheeses are available throughout the Midwest and at local farmers markets in the Indianapolis area. Fons says they love to interact and engage with the public. “We are always asking people what flavors they would like us to experiment with,” says Fons.
If you live in Indianapolis, Tulip Tree Creamery also offers cheesemaking classes for the public.
Visit TulipTreeCreamery.com for more information.
Posted: September 27, 2017 by Certified Humane®
Granja Mantiqueira (Mantiqueira Farm)
Granja Mantiqueira (Mantiqueira Farm), located primarily in the Mantiqueira Mountains in southeastern Brazil, started as a small family farm in 1987. Over the next three decades, it has become the largest egg producer in South America – and the 12th largest egg producer in the world.
Leandro Pinto, founder and co-owner of Mantiqueira Farms, believes it was his destiny to become a poultry farmer. As a child, Leandro’s family raised chickens in the backyard, and his father sold eggs and made fertilizer from the chicken waste to sell to nearby families and businesses.
But Leandro had an entrepreneurial spirit and looked for other ways to make a living. As a young teen, he worked as a shoe shine boy and messenger, and at the local car wash. At 17, he started a small agricultural machine shop, but closed the business two years later because of his lack of experience and the economic unrest of the mid 80s in Brazil. That’s when he saw an opportunity to operate an egg laying business.
A friend in a nearby town had a heart attack and offered Leandro the option of taking over his egg farm. Leandro didn’t have money to buy a farm, but he sold his car and truck and purchased the friend’s 30,000 chickens and signed a contract to rent his barns. Leandro was in business with a few nearby restaurants and bakeries already established as clients.
Like most budding entrepreneurs, Leandro did everything on the farm, from taking egg orders, feeding and taking care of the laying hens, and loading the eggs onto the delivery trucks. His wife, Rogéria, a physiotherapist, helped in her spare time, but Leandro worked day and night to build his business.
“I didn’t get much rest those first two years,” says Leandro. “In fact, it took three days to fill up one little egg truck.”
In 1989, political instability and an economic crisis in Brazil put many farmers out of business. Food production dropped off, and food shortages resulted. Leandro was one of the few farms to survive and thrive, thanks to his already lean operations. Mantiqueira Farm took over the market share of egg sales and used the increased revenue to expand his operations.
By 1990, Mantiqueira Farms had 100,000 laying hens on the farm still run on a non-automated system. But Leandro was interested in the latest and most modern techniques and facilities for his barns, so in 1996, after visiting equipment manufacturers in Europe, Leandro introduced a new automated production system that would speed up egg production. “From the moment, the chicken lays the egg through to the final packaging, no one on the farm had to touch the egg,” says Leandro.
In the mid 1990´s, when Carlos Cunha, the owner of a supermarket chain in Brazil started buying Mantiquieras’ eggs, Leandro felt he was in a good place with his business. But Cunha sold the supermarkets a few years later, and Leandro had no guarantee that sales would continue to grow for his largest client. Undaunted, Leandro convinced Carlos to invest in his company, and three years later, his farm went from laying 400,000 eggs a day to 2.4 million eggs a day. Leandro and Carlos have been partners ever since.
The next step for the partners was to introduce a cage-free system. “We also look for ways to introduce innovations and follow world trends in the egg industry,” says Leandro. “We saw the importance of switching to a cage-free production system since that is what consumers want.”
While researching cage-free operations, Leandro came across Humane Farm Animal Care and the Certified Humane® program. “We felt Humane Farm Animal Care could guide us in setting up a cage-free system,” he says. “We also see the value of their program in validating our program. By becoming Certified Humane®, we could offer even more guarantees and assurances to the consumers about how our chickens are raised.”
The portion of Mantiqueira Farms that is currently Certified Humane® will produce eggs for the Happy Eggs brand and Taeq, the brand produced for Pão de Açúcar supermarkets in Brazil. “Under this system, the birds are calm and docile with freedom to move around and express their natural behaviors, such as climbing on perches,” says Leandro. “The achievement of the animal welfare certification makes us very happy because it ensures we are on the right path in our cage-free production system.”
Posted: April 6, 2017 by Certified Humane®
La Calera SAC Chincha, Ica, Peru
As the largest egg producer in Peru with more than five million laying hens on their 350-hectare farm, they produce eggs for supermarkets, small stores, traditional markets, restaurants, and hotels nationwide. In fact, 98% of the eggs in supermarkets and 23% of Peru’s overall market share of eggs are from La Calera farms, making them an exciting addition to the Certified Humane® program. Currently, Heuvos de Gallina de Corral Humanitaro brand of eggs, available at Wong and Metro supermarkets, and their own La Calera Heuvos de Gallina de Corral Humanitaro brand, are Certified Humane®.
Tayo is committed, however to growing the Certified Humane® program and implementing Humane Farm Animal Care’s animal care standards on the rest of their farms throughout the country. Because most large farms are actually a collection of small farms located in different regions, HFAC will certify an individual farm in a farm business only if it is geographically separate from the other farms in the program. HFAC uses third-party inspectors to conduct traceability audits to ensure eggs that are Certified Humane only come from Certified Humane farms.
Tayo’s family has farmed in Peru for more than 200 years and acquired more than 2,000 hectares of farm land during that time. After the Agrarian Reform (the redistribution of land) in 1969, however, the family farm was reduced to just 80 hectares. Tayo needed to make a living on the much smaller farm, so with the little money he had left, he purchased 3,000 laying hens and launched a small egg production business with four employees. Today, La Calera provides jobs to more than 2,500 families.
“I used to be the one picking up the eggs and running everything on the farm,” says Tayo. “It´s amazing how things have evolved. I am very passionate about this work,” says Tayo.
Tayo quickly learned how to raise hens in the Chincha environment, a somewhat desert-like climate with little rain and moderate temperatures all year-round.
“We give them space to run around and have as much freedom as they can.”
When Tayo learned about the Certified Humane® program in 2012, he decided the program fit his farm’s focus of animal care and would meet the demands of consumers who wanted verification on how farm animals are raised.
“We make a great commitment to take care of our animals and their environment,” says Tayo. “Part of that philosophy is giving the best life we can to the hens. We already follow all the practices set out by the Certified Humane® program, so it made sense to add that label to our egg products, so consumers would know that too.”
It could take a few years, but La Calera is committed to adding more farms to the Certified Humane program. All farms producing Certified Humane products are inspected at least once a year.
La Calera’s commitment to animals and the environment also reverberates into the community. In addition to providing 2,500 jobs for residents, the farm also helps single moms working on the farm by providing on-site day care. They also have built 900 houses for their employees, who where homeless after the 2007 earthquake, and sponsored the city’s first bilingual school.
“We care very much about the welfare of both people and animals on our farm,” says Tayo.
Posted: January 10, 2017 by Certified Humane®
BRF Brasil
BRF– one of the largest food companies in the world – joined the Certified Humane® program in 2016 for some of their integrated chicken farms in Goiás (Midwest Brazil) and some turkey farms in Santa Catarina (Southern Brazil) to fully demonstrate their commitment to animal welfare to their consumers. In 2017, the chicken project was renewed with the integrated farms, and a new chicken project was certified in Mato Grosso state (Midwest Brazil). BRF produces chicken and pork products sold under the Sadia, Perdigão and other recognized brands. Sadia is the leading chicken and processed food brand offered to the Brazilian market.
“BRF is improving the lives of millions of birds under the Certified Humane® Brasil program,” said Luiz Mazzon, Director of Certified Humane® in South America. “We expect this program to continue to grow as more and more consumers demand humanely-raised food.”
Headquartered in Middleburg, Virginia, Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC), which launched in 2003, introduced the Certified Humane® program in South America in 2011. The Brazilian office is responsible for overseeing the expansion of the Certified Humane® program and the certification of farms and food animal producers under the Certified Humane® Raised and Handled label in South America.
BRF ranks as one of the ten most innovative companies in the world, according to Forbes Magazine, and one of the 100 most sustainable on the planet, according to the Global Compact 100 Stock Index, which recognizes companies committed to the incorporation of UN Global Compact principles within their business models.
Animal welfare is an essential part of BRF’s culture and strategy and carries out actions towards the humane treatment of animals in all stages of the production process. Since 2014, when BRF signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the NGO World Animal Protection (WAP), the company has been identifying opportunities for improvement and key trends and practices that improve animal welfare.
“Animal welfare for BRF is not a temporary program, but a real cause they work on at multiple levels within the organization,” says Mazzon. BRF’s commitment to animal welfare is an integral component of the company’s ethical principles, which allows for improvements in the working environment and the human-animal relationship. “We have a team of ambassadors called “Animal Welfare Officials,” who are trained to ensure compliance with these guidelines, commitments, and targets,” says Hugo Urso, Agriculture Director at BRF. “The program includes the assessment of improvement gaps and opportunities, with short-, medium- and long-term plans formulated to ensure the attainment of our goal of maximizing animal welfare.”
According to Urso, BRF maintains a strict policy of zero-tolerance towards animal mistreatment, whether by abuse or negligence. It also relies on standards to provide guidance on best practices that range from the poultry farm to humane slaughter, emergency plans, and transportation. With these company-wide commitments in place, BRF Sadia wanted to take the next step and become part of Certified Humane’s international certification program, which not only outlines humane standards of care the company must follow, but provides third-party independent inspections and audits to ensure compliance of these standards are being met for consumers. “In joining the Certified Humane® program, BRF wants to positively transform its entire global chain by acting even more ethically and responsibly,” says Josiane Busatta, Quality Assurance Specialist at BRF. “Its core activity is producing animal proteins, so animal welfare is naturally one of the great causes we advocate not only within our company, but also outside the BRF universe. Certified Humane® is the most internationally-recognized certification program focused on animal welfare. To be certified by this organization is to have a serious seal for our proposal and program.”
BRF participates in animal welfare discussions at industry organizations, such as the Brazilian Animal Protein Association (ABPA), Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA), and its research arm, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa). They also share their technical knowledge, make financial contributions, and support scientific congresses on the topic of animal welfare at top universities, such as the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil.
Under the Certified Humane® program, BRF must follow HFAC’s precise Animal Care Standards for the humane treatment of farm animals raised for food production and consent to third party inspections and audits to ensure compliance with the Certified Humane® program. Through the program, farm animals must receive a nutritious diet without preventive use of antibiotics, hormones or animal by-products and must be raised with shelter, resting areas and space sufficient to support natural behaviors, like spreading their wings, perching on posts, and living cage-free lives. Adele Douglass, Founder and CEO of HFAC, says BRF’s commitment to humane farm animal care will resonate with other food producers and farms around the world. “Having one of the largest food companies in the world commit to raising their animals Certified Humane® shows that any producer of any size can commit to raising farm animals humanely,” she says. “BRF will set a high bar that other food producers and farmers will want to follow.”
Posted: May 19, 2016 by Certified Humane®
Ecoterra Eggs – Santiago, Chile
Ecoterra, a farm in Paine, Santiago, Chile that produces eggs, is the first farm in Chile to join the Certified Humane® program.
Launched in 2011, Ecoterra had a goal of changing industrialized agricultural systems in Chile to systems more in harmony with animals and the environment.
“Our goal is, and always has been, to create harmony between what the earth gives us and the way we produce our eggs, going back to what is natural for the animals and sustainable for the environment and integrating our local communities in the process,” says Founder and President Pablo Andres Albarrán Lama.
Albarráns parents were in banking and industry, so he says he’s “a first-generation farmer who simply loves animals and the environment.” He studied agricultural engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Santiago, Chile, before finishing his degree at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His thesis was on free-range systems and was the foundation for the animal welfare and environmental farm model he would eventually set up under the Ecoterra brand.
After college, Albarrán returned to Chile, leased nine acres of land and 2,000 laying hens, and launched Ecoterra (“Eco” representing “ecology” and “terra” representing “earth”) with the goal of raising “free-range hens as close to nature as possible,” says Albarran. “We recognize animal behaviors and do a lot to make the hens happy. We have perches and scratching areas on pasture and in the barn. Our hens are free from cages and can develop their natural behaviors inside and outside of the henhouse. They are outside on pasture all day where they can dig, flap their wings, dustbathe, sleep, perch, and rest. Their vegetable diet is supplemented with insects that they find in our broad meadow plants.”
Within a few years, Albarrán realized the animal welfare system he set up on his farm was suddenly in high demand in the marketplace. “I could see the market was changing and people were starting to care about farm animals and their humane treatment,” says Albarrán.
But some of the eggs on the market were not meeting the high welfare standards he was implementing on his farm. “They were using words like “cage-free,” but they were not backed by any set of standards,” he said.
Consumers can download the Certified Humane® app, which is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, to find nearby stores that sell Certified Humane® products. For more information on HFAC and the Certified Humane® label, visit www.certifiedhumane.org.
As the first egg producer in Chile to promote the welfare of laying hens, Albarrán wanted his animal welfare system to mean something to consumers. “With so many supermarket chains and competitors, we were looking for a certification program that explained to the consumer what we were doing for the animals,” said Albarrán. “I saw the Certified Humane label on products in Brazil, Canada and the U.S. and learned about it. I realized through its standards and inspection process that the label would verify for the consumer the animal welfare work that we do every day.”
Ecoterra eggs can be found in more than 500 grocery stores in Chile, including Wal-Mart, as well as restaurants, hotels and via e-commerce.
Under their additional fair trade certification, they also work in alliance with local farms that produce eggs under the same Ecoterra system and same Certified Humane standards to help local farmers make a more sustainable living. “Something a small farmer could not do on their own,” says Albarrán. “We’re helping them become entrepreneurs who can become sustainable environmentally and economically, and we’re helping them implement animal welfare standards on their farms as well.”
For more information on Ecoterra, visit http://ecoterra.cl/en/ .
Consumers can download the Certified Humane® app, which is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, to find nearby stores that sell Certified Humane® products. For more information on HFAC and the Certified Humane® label, visit www.certifiedhumane.org.