The ASPCA has launched the Shop With Your Heart Grocery List, a searchable directory of welfare-certified animal products and plant-based alternatives.
The resource joins a collection of guides available to the public as part of the organization's Shop With Your Heart program, which launched five years ago to inform consumers, food businesses, and lawmakers about solutions that will improve the lives of animals raised for food in the U.S. In addition to earlier functions that allowed users to sort food by product type and identify where each item was sold, the new grocery list allows users to filter by plant- or animal-based foods and, if animal-based, further refine the results by how the animals were raised: in an indoor enriched environment, with outdoor access, or on pasture.
"Shopping with your heart is not about being perfect or about any single right way to eat, it's about recognizing our individual power to improve farm animals' lives," said Daisy Freund, vice president, ASPCA Farm Animal Welfare, in a statement. "To achieve a world without factory farms, this movement needs to include everyone. The ASPCA's Grocery List is designed to help consumers, no matter what they eat, make choices that show animal agriculture that there is no place for animal cruelty in our food system."
With more than one million views in 2021, the Shop With Your Heart resources have proven to be essential for those seeking alternatives to factory-farmed products, whether plant-based or animal-based, with a meaningful ASPCA-recognized animal welfare certification, according to the ASPCA. Shop With Your Heart has contributed to progress for farm animals over the last five years. Since then:
• The number of animals raised under welfare-certified standards has doubled to more than 600 million annually.
• Over 140 food companies offering welfare-certified products have been added to the new and revised Shop With Your Heart Grocery List, representing a 350 percent increase in the number of higher-welfare products on the market.
• The vast majority of Shop With Your Heart users (92 percent) say that the program made them more motivated to avoid factory-farmed products with most having changed what they buy or how they shop for food.
• More than three out of four (79 percent) Shop With Your Heart users report trying to reduce consumption of at least one type of animal product, with 84 percent finding it easier to identify alternatives to factory-farmed products using ASPCA resources.
This year the ASPCA worked with national and regional brands to make the Better Chicken Commitment including Natural Grocers, CookUnity, EatThe80, and The Honest Kitchen. Some committed companies have reported progress or have fully achieved animal welfare goals, like Thrive Market, ButcherBox, Farmer's Fridge, Home Place Pastures, Happy Valley Meat Company, Square Baby, Cafe Spice, Alexandre Family Farm, The Great American Turkey Co., Iconic Protein, The Honest Bison, and Nugget's Healthy Eats.
Related: Natural Grocers Joins Better Chicken Commitment; Butcher Box Earns B Corp Certification.