Animal Care

At JBS USA, animal welfare responsibilities in our production facilities are reported through the Food Safety and Quality Assurance Team. Each business unit also has a Corporate Animal Welfare Manager who reports to the Head of Food Safety and Quality Assurance (FSQA; also referred to in some businesses as the Heads of Technical Services and Quality Assurance) or the Vice President of Operations, who reports directly to the president of the business unit. The Corporate Animal Welfare Manager oversees the animal welfare performance of multiple facilities and provides individual facility support by sharing best management practices and helping address specific issues, should they arise.

Nearly every JBS USA production facility has a full-time Quality Assurance Manager, Animal Welfare Manager or Animal Welfare Officer (AWO) who is responsible for overseeing the implementation of our animal welfare program, which includes facility assessment, training programs and ongoing monitoring. In most facilities, the Quality Assurance Manager reports to the Head of FSQA and receives support from the Corporate Animal Welfare Manager. In our pork facilities in the U.S., the Quality Assurance Manager reports to the Facility Manager and receives support from the Corporate Animal Welfare Manager.

For our beef and pork production facilities in the U.S. and Canada, the Animal Welfare Manager is a Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO)-trained humane handling specialist. In Australia, they are trained according to industry AWO skills and are Australia Livestock Processing Industry Animal Welfare Certification System (AAWCS) approved auditors. In Europe at our Moy Park facilities, our AWOs at our poultry facilities are certified through Animal Welfare Training Ltd. In addition, all personnel handling chickens must have a certificate of competency (COC), which is an assessed qualification issued by the regional regulatory authorities: Food Standards Agency (FSA) in Great Britain or the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland. At our Pilgrim’s UK pork facilities our AWOs are accredited according to Bristol University or Livestockwise.

Each production facility has team members from livestock and poultry handling, processing, quality assurance, operations, procurement and human resources. These team members ensure that the policies and procedures required by the animal welfare program, including annual training of all team members, are being correctly implemented and followed.

Additionally, the welfare of livestock and poultry in our production facilities is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS), Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) Meat Inspection, Buenas Prácticas Pecuarias en Producción de Pollo de Engorda de SADER y SENASICA, Council Regulation N˚1099/2009, Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines and Australian Standard for the Hygienic Production and Transportation of Meat and Meat Products for Human Consumption, dependent on region and protein.

All of our production facilities are audited regularly to guarantee compliance with our animal welfare programs. Quality assurance personnel conduct daily audits to verify adherence to each country’s respective compliance program, depending on the protein. These programs include USDA, NAMI (North American Meat Institute) Animal Handling Guidelines, National Chicken Council (NCC) Guidelines, CFIA Meat Inspection Regulations, Buenas Prácticas Pecuarias en Producción de Pollo de Engorda de SADER y SENASICA, Council Regulation N˚1099/2009 standards on animal welfare and Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) Industry Animal Welfare Standards for Livestock and Processing Establishments. Government inspectors also monitor animal welfare practices daily to guarantee compliance with regulations.

Every production facility also undergoes annual third-party animal handling audits. If a deficiency is identified, immediate corrective action is taken, and internal follow-up audits are scheduled until the issue is resolved. We share corrective action strategies across the company so that all facilities can benefit from new knowledge and perspectives to drive continuous improvement in our approach to animal welfare.

In addition, we have implemented a video auditing system in all of our beef, lamb and pork production facilities and are piloting a system in select poultry facilities. This allows us to conduct real-time internal auditing from a viewing room and provide team members with immediate feedback for improvement. Our video footage is audited remotely by our animal welfare team and/or an independent third party. These independent reviews are designed to verify our ongoing commitment to best practices in animal handling and include alerts and daily summaries to facilities for process improvement.

Livestock transporters are audited daily to verify adherence to JBS USA humane handling standards, NAMI Transportation Guidelines, CFIA Health of Animal Regulations Livestock Transport Requirements and Australian Standard for the Hygienic Production and Transportation of Meat and Meat Products for Human Consumption, depending on the region.