In 2012, Wendy’s announced a 10-year goal to transition our supply chain for pork (bacon and sausage used by Wendy’s restaurants in North America) away from individual sow gestation stalls (an individual enclosure) in favor of open pen/group housing for confirmed pregnant sows. At the end of 2022, we met this goal and completed this transition in our North American supply chain.
Overview of the Wendy’s Gestation Stall Policy
Our specification calls for pork from market hogs, which are animals raised specifically for marketing pork products. We do not utilize meat from sows (or mother pigs raised for breeding). We do, however, extend our animal welfare practices to breeding sows in addition to market hogs, which are their offspring.
Learn more about gestation stalls and how our policy came to be.
Key Progress and Transition Status
All of our bacon and sausage comes from pigs that have been kept in open pen/group housing, not in gestation stalls during pregnancy, consistent with the State of Ohio’s guidance and our previously announced commitment.
To the extent other states adopt requirements that are stricter or more specific than the requirements in the State of Ohio, we intend to comply with those additional requirements to the extent applicable to our supply practices.
The humane treatment of animals is a core element of Wendy’s quality assurance and supply chain practices. Two aspects that underpin our work in this area are our long standing relationships with industry experts, many of whom serve on the Wendy’s Animal Welfare Council, and our audit-based approach to animal welfare. We have recently enhanced these relationships and auditing practices further by bringing in new expertise in the areas of auditing, animal science, wellbeing and behavior, with specialties across our key protein categories. Looking ahead, we will leverage the council to strengthen the standards we apply to ourselves and our suppliers through the Animal Care Standards Program and our recently announced Responsible Sourcing goal. We look forward to continuing to share updates on our progress on our website, The Square Deal Blog and annual Corporate Responsibility report.