The Tyson Foods animal welfare advisory panel helps the company identify opportunities and proactive approaches for continuous improvement in its chicken, turkey, pork and beef operations – from new technologies to emerging ethical issues to changing consumer interests.
“It’s a really diverse group of people who are on the panel,” said Dorothy McKeegan, Ph.D., senior lecturer at the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine at the University of Glasgow and member of the Tyson Foods Animal Welfare Advisory Panel.
“We’ve all got the same goal, which is to improve animal welfare within Tyson and even more broadly seeing Tyson as a leader in that effort. We’re a group where we understand the commercial constraints, while we’re still always challenging ourselves to do better.”
Formed in 2012, the advisory panel is made up of 13 independent animal welfare experts from around the world who specialize in academia, regulatory policy, production agriculture and welfare science and social issues.
McKeegan provides insights on ethical issues in poultry production, which she admits is a broad term. More specifically, the term encompasses everything from the animal experience to the affordability of chicken products for consumers.
“I think most people agree that the primary ethical issue here is the responsibility we have to these animals that we raise for food,” McKeegan added. “So we’re asking Tyson all the time – and they’re asking themselves – is it good enough?”
Opportunities for continuous improvement and innovation
At the annual animal welfare advisory panel meeting, members gather to discuss Tyson’s current approach to animal welfare for the beef, pork, turkey and chicken supply chain and focus on innovative or emerging methods to drive continuous improvement in welfare outcomes.
“The different perspectives have really helped to drive us forward,” Doug Britton, principal research engineer and program manager for the Agricultural Technology Research Program (ATRP) at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and member of the Tyson Foods Animal Welfare Advisory Panel, explained.
The 2021 meeting focused on Tyson’s plan to integrate the five domains animal welfare framework into its global operations. This framework encourages the promotion of positive mental states through four domains – nutrition, physical environment, health and behavioral opportunities – ultimately contributing to the mental state of the animal.
“When we move to the five domains, we’re now talking about nutrition, we’re talking about environment and health and behavior. All of this drives the mental state of the animal and being able to have those measurements allows you to have a technology component that overlays it,” said Britton.
