Over 70,000 of you have taken action against Mountaire’s humanewashing label, One Health Certified. But did you know Mountaire’s CEO Mark Kaminsky is also the VP of the National Chicken Council, the chicken industry’s most blatant humanewasher? Take action today: share our new blog on Facebook and tag 3 friends!
As Farm Forward’s recent blog explains, the National Chicken Council (NCC), the poultry industry’s largest trade association, wants well-meaning shoppers to believe they are choosing a product with higher welfare standards when they see the NCC’s “Chicken Guarantees.”
In reality, the NCC’s standards are a bare minimum for the industry, and it’s the false belief that chickens were raised with higher welfare standards that they’re really selling consumers.
For instance, the NCC touts that their chickens are “cage free” as though they’re upholding exceptional standards, when, in reality, chickens raised for meat in the U.S. are virtually never confined in cages. Crowded, dirty factory farms like the one depicted above are standard practice.
Deception is the NCC’s business model—and it’s effective. Our recent research shows consumers care about higher welfare standards but are overall misled about the meaning behind the plethora of labels. From the industry's perspective, the labels are working exactly as they were created to.
Given that 95 percent of chicken meat sold in the U.S. comes from National Chicken Council members, the vast majority of U.S. chicken is misleadingly marketed or labeled. The NCC is the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse: its leaders are not only producing chicken, but making their own abysmal standards and then disguising them through misleading marketing programs like the Chicken Guarantees, as well as labels like One Health Certified.
Mountaire’s OHC label really only requires meeting the poor standards that the NCC itself set. While a producer could meet American Humane Certified’s minimally higher standards, there’s no incentive to do so if they benefit from OHC marketing while only meeting the industry baseline of the NCC.
Even worse—Mountaire, its owner Ronald Cameron, and its CEO Mark Kaminsky have run amok with a track record of pollution, worker issues, racist affiliations, and various violations. With Mark Kaminsky serving as Vice President of the National Chicken Council, his company’s unethical business practices are inevitably seeping into the industry trade group.
At a time when food prices are soaring, consumers deserve, more than ever, to know when they’re paying for unsustainable, inhumane products, instead of deception being peddled by the Big Poultry industry.
Read more in our recent blog on the National Chicken Council. Then, take action: SHARE the blog and tag 3 of your friends to fight back against Big Poultry’s humanewashing.
Image credit: Stefano Belacchi / Equalia / We Animals Media