MMI Dining Systems is using the internationally recognized “Five Freedoms” of animal welfare as an aspiration for animal welfare in our supply chain:
- Freedom from Hunger and Thirst – by providing ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigor.
- Freedom from Discomfort – by providing appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area.
- Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease – by ensuring prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
- Freedom to Express Normal Behavior – by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal’s own kind.
- Freedom from Fear and Distress – by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering
Animal Welfare in Action
As a step in our continual process for improved animal welfare, we’re taking the following actions:
- Eggs: We will transition to exclusively cage-free eggs, including all our shell and liquid egg purchasing, by 2024, or earlier as adequate supplies become available. (As of December 31, 2022, 48% of MMI’s shell and liquid egg usage is cage-free.)
- Pork: As we work toward eliminating all crates from our supply chain, we currently source 100% reduced crate pork. We will continue to work toward 100% crate-free pork supply, and our goal is to increase the amount of crate-free pork we purchase each year by 25% until we reach our goal by the end of 2024.
- Veal: We only use veal from operations that use group housing (no crates) for calves raised for veal.
- Dairy/Beef: All milk which we purchase is free of antibiotics and artificial hormones. Additionally, we have worked with our suppliers to provide pain relief for disbudding and castration procedures, and to eventually eliminate tail docking and dehorning.
- Broiler Chickens: By 2024, we will source only chickens certified by Global Animal Partnership (GAP) and require all chickens to be processed in a manner that avoids live-dumping and live-shackling and instead utilizes a pre-shackle, multi-step controlled atmosphere processing system that is widely regarded as more humane like products from Coleman Natural Meats (Perdue) and Wayne Farms.
- Plant-based meals: We’ll work with our properties to offer a greater selection of delicious plant-based meals that appeal to meat eaters and vegetarians alike.