About us
Who we are and what we do
From a funding programme for greater animal welfare…
The Initiative Tierwohl was initially created in 2015 as a funding programme for animal welfare. With it, farms, the meat industry and the food retail and gastronomy sectors acknowledge their joint responsibility for livestock farming, animal health and welfare. The Animal Welfare Initiative provides farmers with financial support to help them implement measures for the welfare of their livestock that go beyond the legal requirements. The implementation of these measures is inspected by the Initiative Tierwohl. The Initiative Tierwohl product seal identifies only products that come from animals from participating farms. The Initiative Tierwohl establishes greater animal welfare on a broad basis step-by-step and is continuously developing further. Currently around 600 million pigs, chickens and turkeys benefit from the Initiative Tierwohl.
to Germany’s biggest platform for greater animal welfare.
It’s now Germany’s biggest platform for greater animal welfare. It’s a funding programme for animal welfare, an inspection body, it issues seals for rearing methods , has its own product seal, and it promotes innovation in the industry. Partners along the entire value chain come together in the ITW and combine their forces for greater animal welfare. Their approach is evolutionary: the next possible steps are important on a wide scale.
Tree diagram with the logos of the Initiative Tierwohl partner companies.
Our aims
1.
We want to improve conventional agriculture step-by-step.
2.
This unique alliance is dedicated to working with society as a whole to improve animal welfare.
3.
We want to send a clear signal for greater animal welfare.
How we work
With the Initiative Tierwohl, farms, the meat industry and the food retail sector acknowledge their joint responsibility for livestock farming, animal health and welfare.
The project groups
The project groups for poultry and pigs draft requirements and procedures for the initiative. They are made up of representatives from the retail sector, from abattoirs and from the agricultural industry. With their expertise, they get strategic and operative measures off the ground.
The advisory committee
The Initiative Tierwohl lives on because of its credibility and the professionalism of its players. An important factor here is that the criteria can be implemented, checked and documented. For this reason, an advisory committee ensures that the Initiative can always take the latest findings from the worlds of science, animal welfare and consumer protection into consideration in its work. The advisory committee develops recommendations for the further development of the Initiative Tierwohl and therefore enables a continuous improvement of processes and procedures.
The finance committee
The finance committee is made up of an auditor, a lawyer, representatives from the agricultural industry and representatives from the food retail sector. Together the experts verify the liquidity planning of the Initiative Tierwohl and the cash inflows and outflows.
The sanctions committee
The sanctions committee has been appointed as an independent, neutral body of the Initiative Tierwohl. If the participants of the Initiative Tierwohl fail to meet their contractual obligations, it’s the committee’s task to inspect the measures and impose sanctions. The sanctions committee has four members and the chairman is a former judge. There are also independent experts from the pig and poultry farming industries on the committee.
The shareholders
