Victory! Grocery chain Giant Eagle has revealed that it will remove Mountaire Farms’ “One Health Certified” (OHC) label from its store-brand chicken after dialogue with Farm Forward. TAKE ACTION: Urge ALDI to follow in Giant Eagle’s footsteps in ditching the humanewashing label with a quick tweet!

The OHC label has been widely condemned by a coalition of more than 50 leading public health, environmental, and animal protection organizations. Giant Eagle’s comes as Mountaire, the nation’s fourth largest poultry producer, has been embroiled in controversy over its labor, environmental, and animal welfare practices.

Although touting antibiotics restrictions, OHC allows for repeated, perpetual use of medically important antibiotics for disease control. Despite OHC’s marketing, the label allows standard factory farming practices, such as permanent indoor confinement and genetic modification of broiler birds for extremely rapid growth. 

After reviewing this information, Dan Donovan, Director of Corporate Communications at Giant Eagle, stated to Farm Forward, “Please know that at Giant Eagle we take seriously our responsibility to ensure the welfare and proper handling of all animals that are used in the production of items sold in our stores. … As part of our next product label update, we do have plans to discontinue the inclusion of the One Health Certified label. … We expect this shift to happen over the coming months.”

Giant Eagle is taking an important stand against consumer deception by dropping OHC, and it’s time for other retailers like ALDI and Whole Foods Market that cater specifically to conscientious shoppers to be next in line to address the sea of misleading labels on their shelves.

TAKE ACTION: Urge ALDI to follow Giant Eagle in ditching OHC with a quick tweet!