On its journey from birth, or hatch, to your plate, an animal and its products pass through many stages, sometimes all within the same business, but usually not. We’ve divided this supply chain into 6 general types of businesses:
Restaurants
- this includes all food service entities (eg. airlines, hospitals, tamale vendors…)
Farms/Ranches
- any places where meat, eggs or dairy are produced
Markets/Distributors
- any business selling animal products to the public or to other businesses (eg. retailers, wholesalers, distributors…)
Processors
- any business that processes animal products (not including slaughter, eg. cheese or sausage makers, butchers…)
Nurseries/Hatcheries
- a business that births/hatches young animals and raises them for sale or use
Abattoirs
- a business that slaughters animals
Each of these businesses are subjected to their respective market pressures and must strive to remain profitable in competitive industries. Each must make decisions related to efficiency and ethics. Each must take into consideration both short and long term consequences.
Some businesses, namely farms, nurseries/hatcheries and abattoirs actually handle live animals, thus their practices and environments concern us. Others,namely restaurants, markets/distributors and processors trade in them, so we like to know who they are buying from and selling to and what they are doing with the products in the meantime. Let’s consider each.
Restaurants
As far as WTA is concerned, restaurants have one primary decision to make: Where to buy the meat, eggs and dairy products to serve. The cost of ingredients, their availability, and the customers’ willingness to pay menu prices will be the prime decision-making factors, along with the subjective sourcing preferences of the purchaser. The restaurants’ other expenses (rents, wages, taxes, licenses, etc.) must all be covered by the markup from their cost of ingredients.
Generally speaking, a restaurant will pay more for products coming from farms which practice, say regenerative or integrated farming, somewhat less for farms applying certain “humane” standards, and less still for CAFO products.
In order for a restaurant to consider buying from higher cost sources, they must assume their customers will differentiate between the products and pay the difference in price.
When there is a lack of supply chain transparency, this difference in price can cause significant problems for customers, restaurants and farmers.
Restaurant transparency can be promoted by asking the following questions:
- Where does your restaurant source the animal products you sell?
- Why do you choose these sources?
- Do your sources vary? If so, in which cases?
- Can restaurant workers answer these questions, if asked?
- Do menu prices correlate tightly to ingredient costs?
In addition to informing the customer about product sources, asking these questions can also help restaurants to understand their market. Constructive dialogue between customer and restauranteur enable each to make rational decisions based on first-hand information. If profit margins could be maintained, most restaurants, from Chipotle to Chez Panisse, would prefer to buy from more sustainably and humanely run farms.
This leads to our next business type…
Farms and Ranches
Farms and Ranches are faced with far more decisions which concern WTA than any other business. Hence, the list of questions with which purchasers (individuals, restaurants or markets) might concern themselves is more expansive. Among them are the following:
Origins (birth and early life)
- Are your animals born/hatched on your farm?
- If not, where did they come from? At what age did you receive them?
- If so, under what conditions were they born and raised? (...,...,...)
- How are the animals weaned from their mothers?
- Does their diet differ from an adult diet? If so, how?
- When do they transition to an adult diet?
Health and Animal Management
What are your practices in regards to...
- sickness and health?
- physical, nutritional and environmental stresses?
- culling and euthanasia/li>
- parasites?
- treatments?
- vaccinations?
- physical alterations?
- etc.
Pasture
What can you tell the public about...
- Density (# of animals/acreage?)
- Type (grass, dirt, forb, scrub, mix...)?
- Grazing (rotational, zero, continuous, Holistic Planned...)?
Shelter
- What shelter are the animals provided?
- How much time do animals spend in shelter?
Diet
What do your animals eat and drink?
Transport
- Are animals ever moved from your farm? If so, when?
- What are the conditions of transport (distance, density, etc.)?
- Where do they go?
Slaughter
Do you slaughter your own animals?
- If yes, how do you do it?
- If no, who does?
In short, there are many opportunities for a farmer to cut costs and increase short-term profits by sacrificing animal welfare, product quality, environmental stewardship and/or worker conditions. In an industry with such small margins, and most legislation favoring CAFOs, farmers are beholden to consumers whose acceptance dictates what practices will be followed.
Markets and Distributors
Each of these businesses transfer products from producers to either end consumers, or other businesses who resell them. We would therefore like to know...
- Where do you obtain the animal products that you resell or distribute?
- What businesses buy your products?
Processors
Processors and Abattoirs are often the same business, but we will consider the functions separately. Here we refer to businesses which take raw animal products (meat, eggs or milk) and convert them into different products. Naturally, we'd like to know...
- Where do you obtain the meat, eggs or dairy that you process?
- What businesses buy your products?
Hatcheries and Nurseries
Hatcheries and nurseries, along with farms and abattoirs, actually handle live animals. Thus, their practices are of concern to WTA users. The information we'd like to know is...
- What animals do you sell?
- What are the conditions of their birth/hatch and early life?
- What businesses buy your young animals?
Abattoirs
Unfortunately, death comes for all of us in one way or another. We all hope ours comes with minimal physical and emotional pain. At WTA, we also wish the same for animals. Again, abattoir operators are faced with this fact: less animal suffering generally means less short-term profits. Consumer insistence is the only viable way to overcome this conundrum. We should therefore ask...
- What animals do you slaughter?
- What are the conditions or practices of your abattoir?
- Who do you provide slaughtering services for?
- Do you resell any products yourselves? If so, what products to which businesses?