Animal Welfare for Everyone. And for Each One.
The Initiative Tierwohl was launched in 2015 as a support program for greater animal welfare in livestock farming across the board. Through this initiative, partners from agriculture, the meat industry, food retail, and the restaurant industry are committing to their shared responsibility for animal husbandry, animal health, and animal welfare in livestock farming. It has since become Germany’s largest platform for improving animal welfare. It is a support program for animal welfare, an inspection system, and the issuer of the Haltungsform seal and its own product seal.
Germany’s largest platform for improved animal welfare
Since 2026, the Initiative Tierwohl has been the driving force behind animal welfare in all its forms. It brings together all the branches involved along the value chain, develops solutions based on consumer demand and industry needs, and organizes their implementation.
The goal is always animal welfare—to spread it effectively, increase it effectively, and make it more visible effectively.
The Initiative Tierwohl provides an umbrella for various animal welfare standards – both in breadth and in heights:
- Promoting animal welfare more broadly – with the core program “Initiative Tierwohl Stall plus Platz” in Haltungsform level 2.
- Raising animal welfare standards – with the programmes “Initiative Tierwohl: Frischluftstall” and “Initiative Tierwohl: Auslauf/Weide”
In addition, it provides a coordinate system to help users navigate their own offerings and those of other standard owners:
- Making animal welfare visible – with the five-level labeling system for the Haltungsform used for broilers, turkeys, ducks, pork, beef, dairy cattle, and rabbits.
How we work
With the Initiative Tierwohl, farms, the meat industry and the food retail sector acknowledge their joint responsibility for livestock farming, animal health and welfare.
The project groups
The project groups for poultry and pigs draft requirements and procedures for the initiative. They are made up of representatives from the retail sector, from abattoirs and from the agricultural industry. With their expertise, they get strategic and operative measures off the ground.
The advisory committee
The Initiative Tierwohl lives on because of its credibility and the professionalism of its players. An important factor here is that the criteria can be implemented, checked and documented. For this reason, an advisory committee ensures that the Initiative can always take the latest findings from the worlds of science, animal welfare and consumer protection into consideration in its work. The advisory committee develops recommendations for the further development of the Initiative Tierwohl and therefore enables a continuous improvement of processes and procedures.
The finance committee
The finance committee is made up of an auditor, a lawyer, representatives from the agricultural industry and representatives from the food retail sector. Together the experts verify the liquidity planning of the Initiative Tierwohl and the cash inflows and outflows.
The sanctions committee
The sanctions committee has been appointed as an independent, neutral body of the Initiative Tierwohl. If the participants of the Initiative Tierwohl fail to meet their contractual obligations, it’s the committee’s task to inspect the measures and impose sanctions. The sanctions committee has four members and the chairman is a former judge. There are also independent experts from the pig and poultry farming industries on the committee.
The shareholders
Our Partners in Retail and Gastronomy
