Chains shouldn't blow smoke about pig housingChains shouldn't blow smoke about pig housing

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors and management of Nation’s Restaurant News.


Animal-rights and vegan activists have been claiming that 2012 was a year of breakthrough success. They’re touting a number of supposed pledges from restaurants and food retailers to make demands on their pork suppliers to stop using maternity pens that safely house mother pigs.

In reality, only a handful of companies have made solid commitments to change their purchasing to the more expensive but not more humanely raised pork products. Most made some form of a cleverly worded pledge — enough to get activists off their backs while not actually committing to much.

Here are some of the (non-)statements we’ve seen this year:

• Safe...