At a Lidl supplier in Lower Saxony, chickens live under catastrophic conditions, as evidenced by recordings from the fattening barn.
The discounter wants to examine the processes.
Bad Wimpfen - The chickens are crammed together in a completely overcrowded barn.
They can hardly move in a confined space and stumble over each other.
They are completely filthy.
Their bellies are so big that the animals can hardly stand up and collapse under their weight.
These are shocking photos that were secretly taken in the summer of 2022 in the fattening barn of a supplier to the discounter Lidl in Lower Saxony.
The "Albert Schweitzer Foundation for our environment" has now gone public with the pictures.
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Hens crammed together and overbred died in agony in a fattening barn in Lower Saxony.
Their meat is processed into products from the discounter Lidl.
© Equalia/Albert Schweitzer Foundation for our environment
Completely overbred chickens: Serious allegations against Lidl and suppliers
The animal protection organization raises serious allegations against the supermarket Lidl and its suppliers.
Sick, dying, dead and decomposed animals can be seen in the recordings.
"The employees apparently overlook dead animals in the huge, full stalls, which then lie between their fellow species until they decompose," explains the Albert Schweitzer Foundation in a press release on Tuesday,
October 25.
According to information from the organization, the chicken meat is processed into products from the Lidl own brands "Metzgerfrisch" and "Grillmeister".
"Lidl's chicken meat from 'Stallhaltung Plus' comes from torture chickens from desolate mass stalls.
The research proves that.
Is that what Lidl thinks of as 'quality' and 'animal welfare'?” complains Mahi Klosterhalfen, President of the Albert Schweitzer Foundation.
Shocking housing conditions at Lidl suppliers: animal rights activists call on discounters to act
The animal welfare organizations say that Lidl is avoiding proper animal welfare.
In 2019, the discounter introduced a logo called "Haltungform", in which it indicates the husbandry of the animals - on a scale from 1 to 4.
So far, this is not a must for supermarkets, even if more and more supermarkets - most recently Kaufland - are doing it voluntarily.
However, the federal government is working on a new state logo with which discounters will be required to label their meat products from 2023.
1 | stabling |
2 | Stable Plus |
3 | outdoor climate |
4 | Premium |
Since 2022, Lidl has not only been providing its meat and sausage products with the "Haltungsform" label, but also its dairy products.
But the Albert Schweizer Foundation would like more.
Together with 34 other animal welfare organizations, she launched the European Chicken Initiative.
This wants to drastically improve the housing conditions for chickens.
This includes, among other things, that only 20 animals per square meter are kept and that daylight falls into the stables.
According to the Albert Schweizer Foundation, around 500 companies have already joined the initiative and have committed to selling chicken meat from these improved conditions from 2026 onwards.
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The broilers suffer under the burden of their artificially inflated weight and can hardly stand on their feet.
© Equalia/Albert Schweitzer Foundation for our environment
Lidl has not joined the initiative.
Uniform criteria for keeping broilers, as also called for by the initiative, "often cannot be adequately reconciled with the different structural framework conditions in Germany," explains the discounter based in Bad Wimpfen (Baden-Württemberg) at the request of the Munich Merkur IPPEN.MEDIA.
The further development of animal welfare must take into account national circumstances, such as building regulations and the resulting timelines for the conversion and new construction of stables or, if necessary, state support programs for stable constructions as well as existing animal welfare initiatives and labeling systems.
A sign of this for the Albert Schweitzer Foundation: Lidl only insists on the “posture indicator” system.
“The European broiler chicken initiative, on the other hand, aims for a new minimum standard for all chickens.
Aldi, Bünting, Globus, Norma and Tegut are already doing animal welfare for almost 100 percent of the broilers as part of the initiative, so Lidl will probably be able to do it too," explains Klosterhalfen.
"We call on Lidl to take responsibility: implement the minimum standards of the European Chicken Initiative for all chickens!"
Allegations of animal cruelty: This is how Lidl reacts
In his statement to the Munich Merkur of IPPEN.MEDIA
Lidl also emphasizes that it has been committed to the further development of animal welfare standards for years and will continue to do so.
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We also expressly see the need to transform livestock farming." The discounter wants to continue working on making its range more animal-friendly in cooperation with partners and suppliers along the entire supply chain and with a view to national customer needs.
In its statement, the group refers to what has been achieved so far in this area.
In 2021, they managed to increase the proportion of fresh poultry in husbandry levels 3 and 4 to 20 percent.
This goal was originally set for 2026.
Since the beginning of 2022, the discounter has applied the 5D rule, which refers to pork.
Only meat from animals that were born, raised, fattened and slaughtered in Germany and whose meat was processed in Germany should be sold.
This is what the 5D refer to.
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"Lidl speaks out in no uncertain terms against animal cruelty." The discounter takes any allegations very seriously.
The supplier, who according to Lidl also supplies other market participants in Germany, was asked to comment.
At the same time, internal investigations into the incidents are underway.
"Based on the results of these reviews, we reserve the right to take further steps."
List of rubrics: © Equalia/Albert Schweitzer Foundation for our environment
