Where next for RSPCA Assured? Meat & poultry category report 2025

The RSPCA is starting to look like a black sheep. After Queen’s Brian May quit as RSPCA vice president in September, another one bit the dust in December. That’s when president Chris Packham also parted ways with the animal welfare charity.

The high-profile exits of the rock megastar and the environmental champion came as the RSPCA celebrated its 200th anniversary – and followed a litany of allegations of poor animal welfare at farms certified by the charity’s Assured scheme.

Having seen a series of shocking undercover exposés by animal welfare activists during 2024, Packham announced Assured had become a “millstone” around the RSPCA’s neck and was “propping up the meat industry”. “Serious transgressions” at an Assured abattoir in December proved the final straw for the TV presenter, who said he’d been “unable to see the reforms I needed to see”.

“The RSPCA’s mission to prevent cruelty cannot be reconciled with farming animals”

Packham’s dramatic departure followed accusations by Veganuary founder Matthew Glover that the RSPCA was “misleading the public by welfare-washing animal cruelty in Assured farms”. Glover and campaign groups such as Animal Rising – which undertook the undercover investigations – are now calling for the abolition of the Assured scheme.

So, after such a punishing year, what are RSPCA Assured and the wider food sector doing to raise animal welfare standards? And how could reform affect the future of a £10bn meat & poultry category that’s just rebounded into growth?

Animal Rising’s undercover filming claimed a slew of “beyond barbaric” scenes at RSPCA Assured businesses, including chicks dying on poultry farms and pigs left dead for days in filthy sheds. In response, Glover launched a scathing ad campaign on London Underground trains in October, titled ‘Don’t trust the RSPCA Assured label’.

The scheme had been “created with good intentions”, he says, “but it now serves to mislead the public into believing farming animals can be cruelty-free”.

Beyond the “repeated failings” portrayed in the recent exposés, there is also a “deeper ethical issue”, he adds. “Even if the scheme operated flawlessly, endorsing the farming and slaughter of animals under the trusted RSPCA name is inherently wrong. The RSPCA’s mission to prevent cruelty cannot be reconciled with legitimising industries built on animal suffering.”

A different picture?

Understandably, the RSPCA and its Assured scheme have been robust in their responses to criticisms.

In an interview with The Grocer in October, now former RSPCA CEO Chris Sherwood pointed to an urgent independent review of the scheme that gave it a largely clean bill of health.

The review also found that Assured was “adding benefit for farmed animals”. And the businesses caught up in investigations were dealt with rapidly, he added.

The review, by consultancy firm Crowe, looked into more than 200 farms, while RSPCA Assured also visited the 37 subjected to Animal Rising investigations, says Toby Baker, the scheme’s executive director. “The picture found was not the same as was portrayed.”

Ultimately, “we do a lot of the heavy lifting” on enforcing animal welfare in food production, he adds, pointing to the “appalling” lack of legal protection from government in enforcing animal welfare legislation.

“It’s frustrating. If you take us away, nobody’s really doing that job for animal welfare”

Just 2.3% of all animal welfare breaches are prosecuted, he stresses. “That’s why it’s frustrating when we get criticised, because if you take us away nobody’s really doing that job for animal welfare.”

Baker also points to the RSPCA’s “pioneering standards” in areas such as implementing CCTV in slaughterhouses and banning battery cages for hens, 18 years before it became a legal obligation.

In other efforts to avoid further controversies, Assured is in the process of increasing the number of farm visits – from one assessment and follow-up per year to as many as four visits. The plan flies in the face of calls in the independent UK Farm Assurance Review, published last month, for a reduction and simplification of farm audits.

The increase in visits was always part of a long-term plan to invest in operations, Baker says, as Assured targeted increasing its coverage to 50% of the livestock market. It currently certifies about 13%.

The Crowe review prompted the RSPCA to “accelerate” the growth plans, he adds, stressing Assured continues to “work with government to see how we can get better protection for farm animal welfare”.

Wider welfare schemes

The RSPCA isn’t alone in ramping up activity on the critical issue of animal welfare. Red Tractor, for instance, is consulting on expanding the enhanced chicken welfare scheme it launched in 2020 into the pig sector. It is also looking to reduce chicken stocking density standards to 30kg/m2, in line with the industry-leading Better Chicken Commitment’s standards.

And while most UK supermarkets are yet to sign up to the BCC, retailers are increasingly having to “step up with various schemes” to measure and improve animal welfare outcomes themselves, suggests Compassion in World Farming head of food business Louise Valducci.

Schemes such as RSPCA Assured play an important role in customer reassurance and trust, she says. But they are based on a “snapshot in time” and need to be complemented by retailer-driven initiatives – such as Tesco’s new Sustainable Pig Group. Launched last month, it will incentivise producers for welfare improvements.

“In general, the retailers are measuring the right indicators. But they also need to review that information”, Valducci adds, not just within a supply chain for good practice purposes but at c-suite level, too.

“For example, changing to slow-growing breeds is such a large component of the BCC and cannot be ignored, but breed changes need a huge investment.”

Ultimately, though, concerns about RSPCA Assured and animal welfare in general don’t look like they are affecting sales of meat and poultry just yet.

Andy Shovel, This founder and vegan activist, admitted as much in January when he launched welfare charity A Bit Weird. It aims to inspire a shift in attitudes towards reducing meat consumption via humour, after Shovel concluded depictions of animal suffering left the public “unmoved”.

That was after easing inflationary pressures saw value sales of fresh meat and fresh poultry both grow 7.7% to a combined £9.9bn [NIQ 52 w/e 7 September 2024].

More recently, 72% of respondents in Red Tractor’s Trust in Food Index 20204 – published in January 2025 – believed UK farmers “follow good animal welfare standards”. And despite all the heat it has faced, RSPCA Assured’s consumer trust remained consistent at 66% last year, according to YouGov figures also unveiled in January 2025.

So, despite last year’s scandals, the public still has faith in Assured. It’s not the black sheep of animal welfare schemes yet.