Animal health and welfare

As the world’s leading dairy group, Lactalis pays particular attention to all the animals in its value chain, and especially to the 5 million dairy animals (cows, buffaloes, sheep and goats) that produce the milk the group processes every day.

Lactalis recognizes and fully respects them as sensitive beings, capable of feeling emotions and entitled to enjoy good physical and mental health: contributing to their well-being is a responsibility for Lactalis.

There is also a link between their well-being and milk quality. Contributing to animal welfare thus helps to improve the performance of our partner breeders and to meet the expectations of our consumers and the general public.

Present in some fifty countries, we collect milk from a wide variety of farming systems. We have therefore developed an animal welfare policy that is both internationally credible and locally relevant. Firstly, our approach is based on the internationally recognized “five freedoms” of animal welfare (notably by the World Organization for Animal Health – OIE).

Secondly, we favor a scientific approach, relying heavily on the Welfare Quality® protocols (which define animal welfare assessment procedures) as well as the expertise of the Welfare Quality Network, of which we have been an associate member since 2021. Finally, as national charters are often already in place locally, we rely on them wherever possible.

In 2021, we assessed around 700 dairy farms in a dozen countries on animal welfare. The methodology used to select these farms was defined with Wageningen University in the Netherlands to ensure that they were representative.

We then shared the results of these assessments with renowned NGOs and our in-house experts to build our animal welfare policy: zero tolerance of cruelty to animals, the implementation of a continuous improvement approach with our partner farmers, and the annual publication of our progress. Country by country, our teams are encouraged to go beyond this Group policy if local maturity allows.