Quality Pork is really important to Cranswick.

The pigs used come from British farms approved by Freedom Food in accordance with strict RSPCA welfare standards for pigs. Freedom Food is the only farm assured and food labelling scheme dedicated to improving the lives of farm animals. The Freedom Food scheme covers every stage of a farm animal’s life, each stage governed by strict and compulsory RSPCA welfare standards. So not only do we inspect farms against the RSPCA welfare standards, but we also check the animals are handled, transported and slaughtered to the RSPCA’s standards too.

These pigs are born and raised in the great outdoors for at least half their lives before being moved inside into straw bedded barns. Here they are kept in social groups where they have room to move, lie comfortably and express their natural foraging and rooting behaviours.

Welfare

Cranswick plc is committed to a policy of achieving and maintaining the highest possible standards of animal welfare from birth, rearing, transportation and through to slaughter.

We endorse the “five freedoms” concept proposed by the Farm Animal Welfare Council and the DEFRA Code of Practice for the Welfare of Pigs by ensuring all husbandry methods avoid stress and discomfort by creating freedom from fear, hunger, thirst, malnutrition, and pain and allow the animal to carry out natural patterns of behaviour within the constraints of the husbandry system.

Contracted farm units and transport companies shall be ABM (or equivalent) certified and subjected to welfare audit by nationally registered third party auditing bodies. In addition all farm units will be approved prior to supply and regularly visited by our own Supply Chain Manager in order to satisfy ourselves that the requirements of our Animal Welfare Policy are being delivered.

We will support the animal welfare policies promoted by our retail customers.

Our own processing unit at Preston, Hull shall maintain BQAP certification and shall deliver the highest possible systems of traceability so that we are able to demonstrate to our customers, third party auditors and other interested parties that the animals we use are traceable back to an approved welfare source of supply.

We will regularly review this policy to ensure that it remains concurrent with developments in research, ethics, scientific facts, legislation, codes of practice, and the future needs of our retail customers.