Lidl’s animal welfare standards torn apart by Humane League

Animal welfare charity The Humane League has slammed Lidl’s welfare standards and marketing practices in a devastatingly sarcastic awareness video.

Spotlighting the German discount grocer’s widespread breeding of ‘frankenchickens’ and the generally squalid conditions chickens are reared in, The Human League’s film accuses the supermarket of putting profits before morality.

The film – which splices upbeat music and idyllic farming scenes together with undercover investigation footage from farms connected to Lidl – comes off the back of an Open Cages investigation last month which uncovered shocking conditions and extreme suffering at one of Lidl’s chicken suppliers.

It is also the latest move in an ongoing campaign from the charity, which recently submitted a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), accusing Lidl of misleading consumers with the way it markets its chicken products and animal welfare standards.

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The issues raised in The Humane League UK’s ASA complaint included false claims of how the chickens are reared as well as images misrepresenting the amount of space they have.

Images of free-range, brown laying hens were also used to illustrate animal welfare, despite the fact that Lidl’s meat chickens are a different breed with white feathers, the vast majority of which are reared solely indoors.

A recent YouGov poll commissioned by The Humane League found that 71% of UK adults would be influenced by the animal welfare information provided by supermarkets.

“This video seeks to cut through Lidl’s public relations veneer and show audiences the plain truth – that Lidl is big on cruelty, and Lidl on kindness,” said Humane League UK head of programs, Cordelia Britton.

“Lidl likes to present itself as a wholesome brand, concerned with quality. But repeated investigations into their farms across Europe has revealed a shockingly different picture of chickens living in filth, burdened with painful health problems, and dying in droves.”

The video also forms part of a wider pan-European campaign fronted by the Open Wing Alliance that urges grocers to stop selling so-called frankenchickens (which account for over 90% of the UK’s 1.1 billion meat chickens), and instead sign up to the Better Chicken Commitment.