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In 2002, HSUS drove passage of a Florida ballot initiative to phase out the use of gestation crates—the first state law to restrict a production practice on animal welfare grounds. Since that vote, HSUS and other animal welfare advocates have driven a host of reforms.
Below is a timeline of some of the most important advancements made for farm animals in 2012:
July 2012: Sysco, North America's largest distribution company, serving 400,000 clients, announces it's creating a gestation crate-free supply chain.
July 2012: Sodexo, the world's second-largest food service company, serving 10 million meals a day, announces its timeline for becoming gestation crate-free.
July 2012: Kraft Foods, the world's second-largest food company and owner of Oscar Mayer brand pork products, announces its timeline for becoming gestation crate-free.
July 2012: Fresh Enterprises, owner of the Baja Fresh, La Salsa Mexican Grill and Canyon’s Burger restaurant chains, issues a joint press release with The HSUS to announce its plans to become gestation crate-free.
July 2012: CKE Restaurants, owner of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's chains, sets a timeline for ensuring that its pork supply is gestation crate-free.
June 2012: HSUS-backed legislation passes in Rhode Island to outlaw the use of gestation crates and veal crates, as well as the practice of cattle tail-docking.
June 2012: Kroger, the nation's largest grocery chain, announces that it will eliminate gestation crate pig confinement from its supply chain.
June 2012: Cracker Barrel, which has 615 locations in more than 40 states, announces via a joint press release with HSUS that it will eliminate gestation crates from its supply chain.
June 2012: Sonic, a chain with 3,500 fast food locations nationwide, announces that it is working to eliminate gestation crates from its supply chain by 2017, and intends to accomplish that goal by 2022 at the latest.
May 2012: McDonald's makes a second gestation crate announcement: that its pork supply chain will be 100 percent gestation crate-free by 2022.
May 2012: Denny's announces that it will work to eliminate gestation crates from its supply chain.
May 2012: Safeway—the nation's fifth-largest food retailer—announces that it will work to eliminate gestation crates from its supply chain.
May 2012: The HSUS releases the details of an undercover investigation at a gestation crate confinement factory farm which supplies pigs to meat giant Tyson Foods.
April 2012: Burger King announces that it will transition to 100% cage-free eggs for all of its U.S. locations—both company-owned and franchised—and that it will eliminate the gestation crate confinement of pigs throughout its supply chain.
April 2012: The HSUS releases the details of an undercover investigation at a battery-cage confinement egg factory farm owned by Kreider Farms. The investigation spotlighted nationally in a New York Times column and on ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer.
March 2012: Wendy's, the second largest fast food chain in the country, announces it will eliminate gestation crates in its supply chain.
March 2012: Compass Group, the largest food service company in the world, announces it will eliminate gestation crates in its supply chain by 2017. The company runs 10,000 dining facilities at schools, hospitals, corporate offices and other venues in the United States.
February 2012: Bon Appétit Management Company, operating more than 400 dining facilities at schools, museums, and specialty venues, enacts an animal welfare policy to eliminate battery cage eggs, gestation crate pork, veal from crated calves, and foie gras.
February 2012: McDonald's becomes the first major restaurant chain in the nation to announce that it wants a gestation crate-free supply chain, and begins a three-month assessment of how it can reach that goal.
January 2012: Hormel Foods announces plans to become gestation crate-free at all company-owned facilities by 2017.
July 23, 2012 - HSUS/ USA
