ASPCA Supermarket Scorecard 2024

Assessing supermarkets’ policies, progress and products on critical farm animal welfare issues

Published August 2024

The second annual ASPCA Supermarket Scorecard graded the largest U.S. grocery store chains’ farm animal welfare policies, progress reporting and store branded products on the extent to which they address critical animal welfare issues for chickens raised for meat (also known as broiler chickens), egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs.

CHICKENS RAISED FOR MEAT

The Problem:
Unhealthy Breeds

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LAYING HENS

The Problem:
Battery Cages

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PREGNANT PIGSPig in gestation crate

The Problem:
Gestation Crates

Learn More >

This year’s Supermarket Scorecard builds on last year’s inaugural ranking by evaluating additional grocery chains on their commitments to ban inhumane farming practices from products sold in their stores. In addition, the 2024 scorecard incorporates a new assessment of whether companies are eliminating these practices from their own brands, whose supply chains they directly control. To learn more about why supermarkets’ own brands are an opportunity to improve farm animal welfare, read our blog.

Supermarket Scores

  •  Policy Score
  •  Progress Score
  •  Store Brand Score
  •  Policy Score
  •  Progress Score
  •  Store Brand Score
  •  Policy Score
  •  Progress Score
  •  Store Brand Score
 
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*Indicates a store that did not have products with their own store brands for all categories within the scoring criteria. Their raw scores were adjusted and weighted accordingly so as not to penalize them in comparison with others. For more info, see the Methodology section.

Key Findings

One of the ways that supermarkets can yield their enormous influence on farm animals' lives is by making a public commitment to phase out inhumane practices, signaling to their suppliers that they will have to change practices to continue to sell in their stores. Policies are more powerful in spurring positive change when they are publicly available, specific and time-bound. Publicly reporting progress toward achieving these goals demonstrates effort and accountability to both shoppers and the farmers in their supply chain. When stores choose to offer higher-welfare options within their own brands, such as cage-free eggs, slower-growing chicken, or gestation crate free pork, this is an indicator of the stores’ corporate values and an embodiment of animal welfare policies.

The Good News

Good movers: Two supermarkets received A or B grades this year based on their farm animal welfare policies, progress reporting and store brand products. Notably, Whole Foods Market was the first supermarket to introduce a Better Chicken Project-certified chicken product, and Sprouts Farmers Market was the first to report on breed progress this year.

whole foods market logo

Four stores improved their farm animal welfare policies or reported progress overall since last year:  Albertsons®, Key Food®, Kroger®, and Safeway®. 

Key Food updated their cage-free policy and reported positive progress on their transition to cage-free eggs. While Albertsons, Kroger and Safeway’s progress on providing better chicken options actually slowed from last year, their progress on transitioning to cage-free eggs propelled them to an overall score increase.

Nine stores are aligning their brands with their cage-free policies by offering at least one fully cage-free store brand.

Albertsons, Food Lion, Giant Eagle®, Safeway, Sam’s Club®, Sprouts Farmers Market®, Stop & Shop®, Walmart®, and Whole Foods Market have complete cage-free egg policies and at least one fully cage-free store brand of eggs

Thirteen supermarkets (52%) are reporting progress toward eliminating some form of farm animal cruelty.

These stores include: Albertsons, BJ's Wholesale Club®, Costco®, Giant Eagle, Key Food, Kroger, Publix®, Safeway, Sam's Club, Sprouts Farmers Market, Target®, Walmart and Whole Foods Market.

Twenty-four stores (96%) offer at least one cage-free egg product under their store brand and nine supermarkets (38%) stock at least some store branded pork products that are gestation crate-free.

Shoppers still need to search within their stores’ options for eggs bearing a cage-free claim, organic claim or third-party cage-free certification, but it’s good news that this is available in most stores except Piggly Wiggly®, which was the only store where we could not find a cage-free option within their store brands. Supermarkets that may offer gestation crate-free store brand pork include: Albertsons, BJ's Wholesale Club, Food Lion, H-E-B®, Hy-Vee®, Kroger, Safeway, Trader Joe's® and Whole Foods Market.

The Bad News

Poor performers: Four supermarkets — Piggly Wiggly, Save A Lot, Trader Joe’s and Winn-Dixie — scored a zero on farm animal welfare policies and progress in both the 2023 Supermarket Scorecard and in this year’s Scorecard. Despite near-universal consumer concern about farm animals’ welfare, these stores are failing to make even the most basic commitment to ensure animals in their supply chains are not suffering.  This puts them out of step with their customers and their peers.

Take one minute to ask these stores to stop being cagey about farm animals!

Sixteen (64%) of the largest supermarkets received a failing grade this year. 

The grocery industry has the power to prevent billions of farm animals each year from the worst forms of suffering and cruelty, but most stores haven't risen to the opportunity.

Most stores lack any policy regarding the treatment of chickens raised for meat, and the rest have incomplete commitments, despite the fact that broiler chickens account for almost all of the 10 billion farm animals killed each year in the U.S.  

Several stores partially address chicken welfare - including Albertsons, Costco, Food Lion, Giant Eagle, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts Farmers Market, Stop & Shop and Whole Foods Market - but none have a complete policy. The issue that is most widely left unaddressed is the transition to a healthier, more robust breed that is physically capable of performing normal chicken behaviors like walking and using meaningful enrichments like perches and strawbales. Whole Foods Market is the only supermarket with a store brand product for shoppers looking to buy more humane chicken: the Better Chicken Project Pasture Raised Whole Chicken within their Whole Foods Market brand.

Twenty-one stores (80%) are lacking meaningful policies to end the cruel confinement of pregnant pigs. 

Eleven supermarkets ignore the issue altogether, and ten fall short of clearly banning the use of gestation crates. Whole Foods Market is the only supermarket that we found takes the guesswork out of finding crate-free pork options, with transparent policy reporting and fully crate-free options across their two store brands.

Three supermarkets have made public commitments to eliminate the cruelest farming practices, but are offering no updates on their efforts to do so.  

Regular and clear progress reporting is essential for communicating transparency and dedication to farm animal welfare issues. Food Lion and Stop & Shop are not reporting progress years after setting their commitments on getting pregnant pigs out of gestation crates and hens out of battery cages. Additionally, Kroger is not reporting for pigs.

Tips for Shoppers

No matter where you live, you can find products that are audited to meaningful animal welfare certification standards on the ASPCA Shop With Your Heart Grocery List, including products like eggs, chicken, and pork as well as plant-based substitutes. You may also find welfare-certified farms in your area on our welfare-certified farms directory. If you lack local higher-welfare options, there are grocery delivery services that have committed to welfare-certified sourcing.

For the supermarkets assessed in this scorecard, here are some specific store brands to note:

Higher-Welfare Store Brand Chicken

  • Whole Foods Market sells the Better Chicken Project Pasture-Raised Whole Chicken under their Whole Foods Market brand, which is both welfare-certified by Global Animal Partnership and, most importantly, uses a healthier chicken breed.
  • ALDI has a line of organic Simply Nature chicken that is certified by the Global Animal Partnership, which meets all of the housing components of the Better Chicken Commitment (better lighting and litter conditions, more space, and added enrichment) but the chickens are still fast-growing birds.
  • H-E-B scored an F for their first year in the Supermarket Scorecard, and while this does not improve their score this year as it doesn’t meet the Scorecard criteria, they have a line of Central Market organic air-chilled chicken that is certified by Certified Humane®, which meets some of the housing standards listed in the BCC. However, those chickens are still fast-growing birds.

Higher-Welfare Store Brand Eggs

  • All of the store brand eggs at the following seven stores were found to be cage-free: Costco, Giant Eagle, Sam’s Club, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods Market and Winn-Dixie. All of the other supermarkets assessed (except Piggly Wiggly) offer at least one cage-free option within their store branded eggs: Look carefully on egg cartons for the “cage-free” claim to ensure hens aren’t confined in inhumane battery cages.
  • Some stores even go beyond cage-free with meaningfully welfare-certified store brand eggs, which provide additional assurances for animals. Find a full list of Certified Humane egg options by store on our Shop With Your Heart Grocery List. Some examples of the highest welfare store-brand eggs include:
    • Kroger’s store brand, Simple Truth + Kipster, audited by Certified Humane and offering unique transparency into farm environments.
    • Welfare-certified store brands that offer pasture-based options - look for the pasture raised claim to confirm: Albertsons’ O Organics eggs, ALDI’s Goldhen eggs, H-E-B's Central Market eggs, Safeway’s O Organics eggs, ShopRite’s Bowl & Basket eggs and Weis Markets’ Weis Quality eggs.

Higher-Welfare Store Brand Pork

  • Whole Foods Market’s 365 by Whole Foods and Whole Foods Market pork products are both certified by Global Animal Partnership, which prohibits both gestation crates and farrowing crates.
  • We found several value-added claims on pork products that are either meaningless or provide a consumer with little value or product differentiation (such as “gluten free” or “all natural”). We also found claims referring vaguely to how the pigs were raised, such as “socially housed”, but these terms are often undefined or weakly regulated. To find crate-free pork products and plant-based substitutions, use our Shop With Your Heart Grocery List.

Methodology

The 2024 ASPCA Supermarket Scorecard involved the development of an innovative scoring methodology to assess the robustness of animal welfare policy commitments and the degree and strength of public progress reporting against these commitments, as well as the minimum animal welfare standards of stores’ brands.

Policies and progress reporting are defined as follows:

Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) for Broiler Chickens (chickens raised for meat): a four-part public policy that includes: 1) All BCC components are addressed (breed, housing, slaughter) for 100% of store’s own brand; 2) Expected implementation deadline by 2026 or reasonable date (by 2030 is acceptable for new policies); 3) Annual progress reporting by way of policy language or actual reporting within two years; and 4) Third-party auditing.

Cage-Free for Egg-Laying Hens: a three-part public policy that includes: 1) 100% cage-free housing for layer hens applicable for all shell eggs sold; 2) Expected implementation deadline by 2025 or a reasonable date (by 2030 is acceptable if progress reported); and 3) Annual progress reporting by way of policy language or actual reporting within two years.

Crate-Free for Pregnant Pigs: a three-part public policy that includes: 1) 100% gestation crate-free housing for breeding pigs for all pork products sold. 100% “group-housing” is alternative policy language that is acceptable if housing breeding pigs in crates for, at maximum, the first 4-6 weeks with a statement that effort will be made to minimize time spent in crates. (Group housing does not intend to challenge stronger state laws that ban gestation crates outright, but rather to encourage nationwide progress for pigs.); 2) Expected implementation deadline by 2025 or a reasonable date (by 2030 is acceptable if progress reported); and 3) Annual progress reporting by way of policy language or actual reporting within two years.

Progress reporting is the percentage of a complete policy implemented. The update must be from within two years (2021 data accepted given retailers compiling end-of-year data and timing of this scorecard) and be publicly accessible, such as on their website or in a press release.

Policies or progress reporting that were removed, outdated, vanishing (like an Instagram Story), or published only on a non-company-related website were not deemed eligible since they are unverifiable. Supermarket chains that linked to parent companies’ websites for applicable policy and progress reporting were accepted.

Scoring Methodology for Policies:

  • CRITERIA
    POINTS
  • Complete, all components met (3 for eggs and pigs; 4 for broilers)
    100
  • 2 of 3 components met for eggs, pigs. 3 of 4 for broilers
    75
  • 1 of 3 components met for eggs, pigs. 2 of 4 for broilers
    50
  • Mentions issue for eggs, pigs. 1 of 4 or mentions issue for broilers
    25
  • No acknowledgement of issue
    0

The total policy score possible for supermarkets is 300 (= 100 points x 3 policies).

Scoring for Progress Reporting: The percentage of published progress that relates to a complete policy. The total progress score possible for supermarkets is 300 (= 100 points x 3 policies).

If a company reports 50% cage-free shell eggs for its store brands (not whole store assortment as per the definition of a complete policy), the ASPCA will seek out what percentage makes up the total store brand supply and calculate accordingly. If 90% of eggs are the stores’ brand, then the points awarded would be 45 [=(0.5*0.9)*100]. If the percentage is not available nor can be reasonably inferred, then a score of 0 will be attributed since the lack of transparency forces a random guess. For broiler policies, it is possible that components are achieved in a step-wise manner. In this scenario, each major component — breed, housing, slaughter — is weighted at 1/3. Housing can be further divided into four buckets (light, litter, enrichment and space), each weighted at 1/4. The ASPCA strives to award all possible points where deserved.

Store brand product assessment:

Supermarkets’ store brands were evaluated based on a random sampling of only their online offerings in various zip codes (excluding California and Massachusetts, where battery cages and gestation crates are already banned by state law). Each store brand per animal category earned the corresponding number of points: 0 if no compliance, 50 points if some of the product line complied (e.g., some cage-free eggs and some caged eggs within a singular store brand), and 100 if the store brand was fully compliant and communicated at the point of sale (on-pack or in a product’s description for online orders):

  • Chicken: A chicken product that fully meets and is third-party verified for meeting the housing environment and breed components of the BCC. (Multi-stage controlled atmosphere stunning was excluded this year because there are not on-package claims used in the marketplace yet, nor it is covered in any animal welfare certifications.) Deli or unpackaged/unlabeled chicken products were not included in the assessment.
  • Eggs: Shell eggs that are labeled as cage-free or otherwise have cage-free required as a part of an independent certification, e.g., Certified Humane or USDA Organic. Store brand liquid eggs and prepared eggs (e.g., hard-boiled) were not evaluated.
  • Pork: A pork product that is clearly labeled as gestation crate-free or required by virtue of earning a certification that requires it to use its seal. A pork product that is labeled as being from group-housed sows (or similar claims) was accepted, as long as the duration of time in gestation crates was defined and in compliance with a maximum of 4-6 weeks. Deli or unpackaged/unlabeled pork products were not included in the assessment.

If there was more than one store brand per animal category (e.g., two store brands of eggs), then the score was averaged for that animal category. The total possible points for store brands is 300 (= 100 x 3 animal categories).

Total Score Calculation: Each company’s policy score, progress reporting score and store brand were summed to calculate an overall total possible score out of 900. These total scores determined each company’s final grade. Final scores were rounded to the nearest integer.

  • Final Grade
    Points Earned
  • A+
    800-900
  • A
    600-799
  • B
    450-599
  • C
    300-449
  • D
    150-299
  • F
    0-149

Stores with no store brand products for any of the categories (i.e., eggs, chicken or pork) were denoted with an asterisk. Their scores were calculated only for the store brand categories they did have (i.e., scored out of 600 for policy and progress, plus 100 for eggs if they did not have pork or chicken products within their own brands — e.g., Piggly Wiggly. This means the denominator of their score was 700 compared to stores with store brand eggs, chicken and pork, which were scored out of 900 total points).

Supermarkets were contacted prior to the release of this report and given an opportunity to correct or improve their scores by June 17, 2024, and all data included in the Supermarket Scorecard represents policies, progress reporting and store brands up to that date.

Full Chart of Scores:

SupermarketBroiler Chickens Policy ScoreBroiler Chickens Progress ScoreBroiler Chickens Store Brand ScoreBroiler Chickens ScoreLaying Hens Policy ScoreLaying Hens Progress ScoreLaying Hens Store Brand ScoreLaying Hens ScorePregnant Pigs Policy ScorePregnant Pigs Progress ScorePregnant Pigs Store Brand ScorePregnant Pigs ScoreTOTAL SCOREFINAL GRADE
Whole Foods Market7560.625160.6100100100300100100100300761A (600-700)
Sprouts Farmers Market752601011001001003007516093494B (450-599)
Giant Eagle7532.80108100701002700000378C (300-449)
Costco Wholesale2500257591.61002675033083375C (300-449)
Kroger507.8057.85033.666.7150.3100013113321C (300-449)
Albertsons50905910048632112502550320C (300-449)
Safeway50905910048632112502550320C (300-449)
Food Lion250025100050150100038138313C (300-449)
Stop & Shop25002510007517510000100300C (300-449)
Sam's Club000010041100241250025266D (150-299)
Target00001005850208500050258D (150-299)
BJ's Wholesale Club00001004950199005050249D (150-299)
Walmart & Walmart Neighborhood Market00001002175196250025221D (150-299)
Key Food000010035501850000185D (150-299)
Harris Teeter25002525075100500050175D (150-299)
ALDI000075075150250025175D (150-299)
Publix00005033751580000158D (150-299)
Weis Markets0000750751500000150D (150-299)
Trader Joe's000000100100005050150D (150-299)
H-E-B000025050752501338113F (<150 points)
Winn-Dixie0000001001000000100F (<150 points)
ShopRite0000008383000083F (<150 points)
Hy-Vee000000636300131375F (<150 points)
Save A Lot0000002525000025F (<100 points)
Piggly Wiggly0000000000000F (<100 points)