Animal Welfare for All – and for Everyone: Join Now or Step Up!
Initiative Tierwohl expands the highly successful level 2 program “Barn + Space” with offerings for level 3 “Fresh Air Barn” and level 4 “Outdoor Access.”
Consumers can expect to find both new product seals in retail food stores from mid-2026.
The new programs are initially aimed at poultry and pig farming operations. Farmers can register starting now.
How can you actively contribute to the Initiative?
As a consumer
Products bearing one of our seals come from farms that meet specific animal welfare criteria as part of their participation in the Animal Welfare Initiative. In the “Stall plus Platz” program, these include increased space and other basic criteria. The “Frischluftstall” and “Außenklima” seals entail requirements for even more space and a wide range of far-reaching criteria for improving animal welfare. In this way, the Animal Welfare Initiative offers both livestock producers and consumers options tailored to their needs and capabilities regarding animal welfare.
As a farmer
Join us in improving animal welfare. By participating in the Animal Welfare Initiative, your farm commits to meeting standards that exceed legal requirements. You can choose from three programs with varying levels of requirements.
The Animal Welfare Initiative was founded in 2015 as a partnership between the food retail, agricultural, and meat industries. Participating food retailers financed the system through the end of 2020 via a fund that provided financial compensation to participating livestock farmers for the additional costs associated with animal welfare. The companies contributed a total of €645 million. Since January 2021, livestock farmers participating in the Animal Welfare Initiative have been receiving a premium from their slaughterhouses, which have also joined the industry alliance for improved animal welfare. Meat and sausage products from the slaughter and processing process are labeled with the product seal and are available at participating food retailers.
To further enhance animal welfare, partial fund financing will remain in place for the time being. The reason for this is the three production phases in pig farming: sow management, piglet rearing, and pig fattening. To enable end-to-end ITW certification, the Animal Welfare Initiative is working to recruit additional piglet producers. Until the chain is closed, retail partners, the food service industry, and slaughterhouses will continue to provide financial incentives for piglet producers.
