Fumagalli and the Good Pig Award.
This year Fumagalli Industria Alimentari SpA was the only company in Italy to receive a “Good Pig Commendation” for improving the welfare of its sows in its supply chain, abolishing farrowing and gestation crates which cause animals great suffering and deprivation, and giving sows straw and other materials to encourage them to behave as they would in nature. For Fumagalli, the Commendation awarded by the non-profit organisation Compassion in World Farming (CIWF Italia), whose objective is to improve the wellbeing of farm animals in the food industry, is just the first step on a long journey which the company embarked on years ago. “We were nominated for the Compassion Award – explains Pietro Pizzagalli, head of the breeding centres – by adopting extremely high standards during the breeding, fattening and slaughtering of our pigs, which are decidedly higher than the standards required by the European Directive on animal protection”. No mutilation is performed within the company, for example, something which is routine practice in pig farming. “In 2018 the European Union will abolish surgical castration – explains Pizzagalli – and Italy will request special dispensation because we work with heavy pigs in this country. We have already implemented alternatives to castration on our breeding farms which we developed in conjunction with experts from the non-profit organisation: some of our pigs are treated with an immunovaccine. In other cases, we adopt the same technique used for dogs and cats using anaesthesia and analgesia”. To maintain the Good Pig Award, Fumagalli must continue to apply the above-mentioned criteria on its farms for at least five years and, most important of all, the supply chain will be monitored during that time by the Compassion team which will check its progress, as well as providing assistance and support throughout the process.