One of my family's great joys is going out to dinner together, and we tend to have favorite places—one of which is P.F. Chang's. So recently, when I read a Forbes article about Popeyes agreeing to something called the Better Chicken Commitment for the chicken it uses on its menu, I thought about all the times we'd been at P.F. Chang's when it was promoting its famous chicken lettuce wraps. I wondered if maybe the restaurant had that same commitment for its chicken that Popeyes now has.

Sadly, it turns out it doesn’t.

So I decided to do some research to see how important it was for a company to have a commitment like that. Here’s what I found out:

• Currently, chickens raised for many restaurants’ supply chains live a life of pure torture. They are bred to grow at an alarmingly unnatural rate, which causes leg deformities, organ failure, and heart attacks in these baby birds. Each flock, which consists of tens of thousands of birds, are kept in dirty, windowless sheds. They are forced to live in their own waste with ammonia levels so concentrated that many suffer from chemical burns. When these birds are brought to slaughter, they are violently shackled upside down. Their throats are then slit, often while they’re still conscious.

But P.F. Chang’s has the opportunity to vastly improve the lives of the chickens it uses for the meat on its menu by adopting the Better Chicken Commitment, a comprehensive set of welfare reforms that address the worst abuses suffered by chickens on today’s farms. Over 185 companies have already signed on to this commitment, and I believe that P.F. Chang’s should join!

Consumers across the globe are demanding more transparency about the sources of their food—especially with regard to animal welfare. In response, restaurants, from Burger King to TGI Fridays to Benihana are stepping up to the plate and committing to doing better. 

I hope you will join me in urging P.F. Chang’s to keep moving in the right direction for its customers, the animals in its supply chain, and the planet.

P.F. Chang’s, will you P.F. Change for the better?