Safeway statement on group housed pork sourcing progress
By Meatingplace Editors on 1/1/2014
Safeway posted the following statement on its website:
In 2012, Safeway announced that it would begin formulating plans to convert its pork supply to group sow housing. Safeway continues to increase the quantity of pork it buys from vendors transitioning to group housing systems for their breeding sows.
Last year the company introduced its own line of Open Nature pork products that come exclusively from group housed sow sources. Within the last several months the company has converted its entire Eastern Division fresh pork supply to product sourced from systems that utilize group sow housing, with plans to add another operating division in early 2014.
Safeway will continue to shift its pork business to suppliers that have publicly announced plans for moving away from gestation stalls to group housing systems, and will ask these suppliers to provide us such plans by the end of 2014.
Safeway remains committed to this program and looks forward to working with our supplier community to achieve our objectives within a reasonable timeframe.