The goal: help animals currently living in awful conditions, end factory farming, and create a world free from animal suffering. Sound utopian? To us, it isn’t. We believe such change is not only possible, but urgently necessary. Current farming methods lead to enormous animal suffering, but are also deeply embedded in our systems, cultures, and ways of thinking. To make these big changes, then, we need ambitious actions on several fronts, each complimenting the other, and addressing the wide variety of problems that both cause and uphold these farming methods. Here are 3 areas we’re working on that are crucial for ending factory farming – and that we believe will help turn the tide for animals in the coming decades.
Area 1 – Ending the worst farming practices
The vast majority of people, including those who eat animal products, believe that farmed animals should live in good conditions. Given this strong public support for higher animal welfare, one of the most effective ways to improve the lives of animals is to lobby large companies like supermarkets and restaurants (who decide the fate of large numbers of animals) by urging them to ban cruel practices from their supply chains. There is huge potential here. If, for example, a major corporation decided to stop using frankenchickens (fast-growing chickens disposed to suffer), this would improve the lives of millions of animals in a matter of years.
But how do we get companies to make these changes? There are several steps. First, we establish contact with a company and meet with them, to better understand the welfare of animals currently in their supply chain. From there we move forward: solving problems together, persuading them to adopt higher welfare practices, and ensuring they honour any commitments they make.
Currently, for example, we are meeting with companies who have signed up to the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC): a set of science-based higher welfare standards for chickens raised for meat. It’s complicated work, with many barriers to overcome and challenges to solve. But we persist because we know that every honoured commitment means thousands (and in some cases millions) of animals lifted from extreme suffering.
How do we convince companies who don’t want to change? That’s when we use another tool: public pressure campaigns. Big food businesses rely on consumers remaining unaware of the suffering experienced by the animals in their supply chains. So if we can’t help animals by appealing the first-hand decision makers, we take it to the second-hand decision makers: the customers.
People don’t like animal cruelty. That’s why we find that the public is on our side once they learn the truth behind a company’s marketing claims. In a pressure campaign our goal is to inform the public about the issue which a company is refusing to address: by securing big media stories, organising protests outside of stores, or producing investigations which reveal what a company’s supplier farms really look like. Campaigns like this are powerful and effective tools because the public gets behind them: and companies risk reputational damage and loss of customers by not acting.
Thus far, we’ve seen some significant victories. Through our efforts, and the efforts of other animal welfare NGOs, 8 out of the 10 major UK supermarkets have agreed to give chickens more space – a change that improves the lives of half a billion chickens. But there’s still so much more to do.
Ending the sale of frankenchickens may seem like a pipedream, but the process has already begun. Hundreds of companies across the world have made commitments to do so by the end of 2026. Whether they honour those commitments is yet to be seen.
However, thanks to pressure from animal advocates, there are now no more frankenchickens on sale in Dutch supermarkets. Other countries like Denmark, Norway, and Germany are also phasing these chickens out of production. This shows that it can be done, and animal welfare trailblazers like M&S and Waitrose are beginning the process in the UK too.
Area 2 – Increasing societal awareness
As established, to make big changes, we need public support. Our presence in the media is therefore crucial. To make an impact, we need to raise awareness in society about the reality of factory farming. This allows us to shift public attitudes and change social norms around which behaviours are deemed acceptable and which are not. When a practice is widely condemned, businesses feel greater pressure to move away from it. This is why media coverage is so powerful: it not only educates but also creates momentum for real-world change.
Factual reports, investigations, and media stories allow us to put animals on the agenda. Our undercover investigations, for example, have revealed the horrific living conditions that are an everyday reality for chickens raised for meat. These investigations do more than just shock people; they force a conversation about what is happening behind closed doors. By publishing these stories through major news outlets like the BBC, The Guardian, and The Sunday Times, we ensure they reach millions of people, from everyday consumers, to celebrities, politicians, and even sometimes companies – who don’t always know what their supply chain truly looks like. By sparking widespread public outrage about an animal welfare problem, we can use that momentum to show that customers and voters are demanding change.
But we also need to give people concrete ways to take action. So we create such opportunities: providing petitions for people to sign, companies and politicians to contact, and protests to attend. By giving people distinct ways to demand better welfare standards, we turn outrage into action. And when enough people speak, companies and politicians listen.
Through relentless media pressure, investigations, and public mobilisation, we acknowledge a key fact: that ending factory farming cannot be done alone.
Area 3 – Changing legislation
It’s not just companies that control the fate of millions of animals: the government does too. While political change is generally slower than working with companies, policies, regulations, and new legislation are all powerful tools that can ban harmful practices for good and create transparency about low welfare standards. We therefore regularly engage with key decision makers in the government to push for legislative change.
This year, for example, Open Cages’ Co-founder and CEO Connor Jackson, along with representatives from other animal welfare NGOs, attended an animal welfare roundtable with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). DEFRA invited each organisation to bring ideas and proposals about what the new Labour Government should focus on in the field of farmed animal welfare. This provided the perfect opportunity to put the biggest animal welfare problems on the government’s agenda. This direct contact with those in power provides a possibility that we can’t get from engaging with companies: country-wide systemic change.
There are countless other examples. Last year, for example, the government launched a public consultation about making it mandatory to have clear Method of Production Labeling (MoPL) for certain animal products. We saw this as a great opportunity. Clearer labels for chicken products, for example, would help shine a light on the awful welfare of over 90% of UK chickens. We therefore worked hard to support such a change: submitting a detailed response to the government’s consultation and mobilising hundreds of supporters to email the government to express their support for clearer labels. We have also joined in calling on the UK Government to ban the practice of keeping egg laying hens in cages, and to improve the law for chickens raised for meat following the deaths of millions of chickens during a heatwave.
In working to change legislation, we aim not just to improve the conditions for animals today—but to shape a future where higher welfare standards are the norm, not the exception.
Moving forward
There are many other ways that advocates can fight for animals. We’ve picked a few areas where we believe we can have the greatest impact. Each of the three areas listed above come with distinct and difficult challenges. We should expect this: we are, after all, attempting to pave new ground and make history. And as the world changes, and Open Cages expands, we’ll need to do everything we can to meet these challenges head on, to explore new areas of work, and to reflect on what we can do better. It’s going to be a long and difficult road, but one we are determined to take, because we know the goal: help animals currently living in awful conditions, end factory farming, and create a world free from animal suffering.