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[The campaign ended when we made Toridoll Holdings stand at the starting point for animal welfare.]Hens are left in cages in Japan, while they are released globally, what does that tell us? On September 3, 2022, Toridoll Holdings Corporation(THC), based in Tokyo, Japan and running fast food restaurant chains such as Marugame Seimen (chain of noodle shops), announced on the website their timeline and stance for switching eggs from caged to cage-free. The announcement was released just after the global campaign for the protection of egg-laying hens was launched by Open Wing Alliance (OWA), a global alliance to free laying hens from cages with more than 90 member organizations from…
Ramen restaurant “Chukasoba Mugen” in Osaka officially announced eggs used in their restaurants are 100% cage free. Chukasoba Mugen which has been listed in the Michelin Guide in a row, only uses cage-free eggs from WABISUKE Co., Ltd. Unlike general large- scale cage breeding in Japan, this poultry produces eggs only from cage-free which is friendly to both people and hens. WABISUKE’s laying hens can bathe in the sand as much as they want, drink water, and eat at any time, 24 hours a day. Today, information on the world is readily available to anyone, and many consumers are concerned that animal welfare in Japan is much lower than in other countries. In spite of…
On July 28th 2022, we filed petitions to the Saijo Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution in regards to the case in which hogs were starved to death. We collected petitions from experts to send it over to the prosecutor in Saijo after the indictment for this case was suspended. The details of the case can be found here. So far, we have collected petitions from 27,406 individuals and we’re continuing to receive more. Opinions received from experts The following experts shared their opinions as we submitted the petitions: *alphabetical order Seiichi Kushida, a member of the House of Councilors of Japan Aya Sugimoto, the president of Animal Welfare Organization,…
From June to July 2022, the Animal Rights Center conducted an awareness survey on fur (animal fur). As a result, 82.8% of people answered that they would not buy fur in the future. In addition, the characteristics by age and gender are also prominent, and although men in their teens have the coldest attitude toward animals, women in their teens are second to be kind to animals, following those over 60 years old. In other age groups, there is no difference in trends between men and women, but teens seem to have different values. It is also clear that females generally have a kinder attitude towards animals, while males, especially…
56,000 pigs Killed in two months in a farm in Tochigi The fourth case of Swine fever was detected on July 23rd 2022 in Tochigi prefecture. The news reported that this was the biggest case in Japan as approximately 56,000 pigs would be culled. There have been 83 Swine fever cases, including this latest one, and 353,852 pigs will have been killed in Japan. This is as many as the population in Iwaki city of Fukushima prefecture, Kawagoe city of Saitama prefecture, or Takatsuki city of Osaka prefecture. We have been dealing with Swine fever by culling these affected pigs so far, but should we continue to take these innocent…
In June 2022, we learned horses were killed by getting disinfectant, Pacoma, injected without anesthesia at Kasamatsu Racecourse in Gifu. With this information, we submitted a demand letter to improve this situation to the Gifu Prefectural Racing Association, the governor Yoshida, and the National Association of Racing. On June 30th, we received their response. Gifu prefecture replied that they had requested Kasamatsu Racecourse to make a change, to which Kasamatsu Racecourse responded with the following new policies: Horses will be administered an analgesic to get sedated first, then, will move forward with the procedure while administering anesthesia as well as a muscle relaxant drug. The entire procedure from stunning to…
The court’s ruling of the bribery case, in which the former CEO of the leading egg company AKITA Foods had bribed the then Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Yoshikawa to lower the standards of animal welfare, has become final and binding. They were both found guilty and rightly so. See here for related articles including an overview of the case. (As for the contents of the court’s ruling, please search news articles) We must not end with just 2 guilty people Is this the conclusion of the case? Having been witnessing absurdity of the poultry industry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) since around 2018, before…
Animal welfare progress by companies in Japan is far behind that of the rest of the world. This is apparent both in the Ethical Report Card of Companies that ARCJ participates in the rating of and in the ranking conducted by an evaluator for overseas investors. However, efforts for animal welfare are steadily progressing in Japan as well. Of course, what are driving this trend are the voices of consumers and citizens, and citizens’ groups like us who negotiate with companies with those voices on our back, and recently, consumer groups are participating in this movement as well. Let’s take a look at the situations of companies, though it is…
Cockfighting is illegal. As soon as 2 male gamecocks are placed in a pen, it can be illegal. On 2022/4/28, Shizuka Terata questioned the illegality of cockfighting at the House of Councilors Environment Committee. “Regarding Article 44, Paragraph 2, whose penal provisions have been tightened by the recent amendment, I think that making gamecocks fight itself may fall under the item of making a protected animal perform an act that may cause physical injury unreasonably, and is subject to the penalties of the Act on Welfare and Protection of Animals. I would like to ask the opinion of the Ministry of the Environment.” In response to this, Director Okuda of…
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We’re announcing the Animal Welfare Award winners for FY2021. Animal Welfare Award (AWA) is an award annually selecting and giving thanks to companies that consider animals and work on animal welfare in Japan which is lagging behind the world in terms of animal welfare for livestock and aquatic animals. In the view of Animal Rights Center Japan that works to protect livestock animals in Japan, efforts resulting in the biggest impacts have been recognized. Please see the results below:
On 2022/4/7, at the House of Councilors Economic and Industrial Committee, Representative Kiyoshi Adachi brought up animal welfare as one of the challenges for Japan’s economy. Actually this is the first time that farm animal welfare has been brought up by the Economic and Industrial Committee. From this, we can see that the discussion on economics and business was completely omitted from the discussion of animal welfare in Japan. Mr. Kiyoshi Adachi cited “creation of corporate value” and “branding of Japanese food” as reasons for taking up animal welfare at the Economic and Industrial Committee. He asked how we should tackle animal welfare in the context of ESG investment and…
Following the investigation report after a scandal in the egg industry, their first information exchange session about animal welfare was held. As this investigation report mentions the importance of improving transparency of the government office, this is a great way to rebuild citizens’ trust in the government. As this article explains, there was a history where some officers of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) were entertained by Akita Foods where they were incentivized to lower the bar for animal welfare standards. As a result, the officers made decisions without consulting the opinions by the committee of experts. Despite this, the information exchange session was held behind closed…
Genome-editing technologies can cause animals to suffer. The technologies, however, have already been applied to animals. Ahead of other countries, in Japan, genome-edited red sea bream and Fugu, or blowfish, have been fully developed and are already on the market. Genome-editing technology and genetic modification technology are essentially the same in their meaning. Although regulations applied to such technologies are different depending on countries, some of them use the terms “genome-editing” and others use the term “genetic modification”. What these technologies do are adding, deleting, or changing gene materials on the specific spots of genome (the complete set of genetic material and information organisms have). These technologies are essentially the…
On March 18, 2022, Hotel Senkei, focusing on both animal welfare and SDGs, announced that the eggs used at the hotel will be 100% cage-free or free-range by 2030. They came to this decision after discussing with the Animal Rights Center Japan. Immediately after learning about the importance of animal welfare, Hotel Senkei began to use cage-free eggs for breakfast which are from the cage-free poultry farm in the local area, Kanagawa Prefecture. After then, they considered switching all the eggs used at the hotel and decided to go cage-free. The following cage-free policy is posted on the sustainability commitments of Hotel Senkei. Kaori Tsuda, the young proprietress of Hotel…
In March 2022, Japan’s largest egg producer Ise Foods, faced by financial difficulted, filed for corporate reorganization, drawing much attention since. Ise Foods keeps more birds in battery cages than any other companies in Japan, counting to as many as 13 million hens. While they have begun to introduce cage-free rearing methods in the United States, the pace has been extremely slow. Given that timing, they appear to have inevitably done so as some US states announced stringent regulations that would ban the trade of cage-reared eggs. There are many ways to describe Ise Foods; the largest egg company in Japan, a frontier of the low margin high turnover business…
Since 2016, Animal Rights Center Japan has been conducting a survey once a year using a private company to see how well the actual rearing of livestock animals is recognized by consumers. We report the results of the survey conducted in 2022 (the number of valid responses was 1,214). The questions are the following 10 items: Do you know that many of the sows are trapped in a gestation crate, a narrow enclosure in which they can’t turn around? Do you know that many of the piglets are castrated and have their teeth and tails clipped without anesthesia? Do you know that many of the chickens for eggs are kept…
Mayonnaise is one of the most competitive products regarding animal welfare. Mayonnaise is said to be a “semi-solid dressing made mainly of cooking oil, vinegar, and eggs”, and eggs have been widely used. Eggs are not really necessary; the same flavor, taste, and texture are possible without eggs. Therefore, many egg-free mayonnaise are sold at low prices. For companies to go cage free, they don’t really need to procure expensive cage-free mayonnaise at this time; they can just use egg-free ones. A wide variety of mayonnaise is sold. Recently, the variety of mayonnaise with cage-free eggs are increasing. What we’d like to commend the most is the private brand “Bioral…
In 2021, 497,000* animals were killed for Japanese people’s fashion. You would be horrified if the same number of humans were killed for the same reason. Still, the number of animals killed for fur is a lot fewer compared to 2006 in which 7,975,000* were victimized that year. The Trends of Animal Fur Imports in 2021 In 2021, 375,263 clothing items with animal fur, weighing 375,981 kg in total, were imported to Japan, down 65% compared to the previous year. The clothing items with animal fur means coats and sweaters with fur trims, which typical shoppers tend to purchase. On the other hand, more animal fur pelts were imported than…
From July 2021 to January 2022, ARCJ ran a 6-month campaign about eyestalk ablation in shrimp farming, thanks to a grant from Compassion in World Farming International. The campaign’s objectives were: to raise awareness about shrimp eyestalk ablation to reduce farmed shrimp consumption to encourage aquaculture certification labels to prohibit eyestalk ablation The target audiences were the general public and aquaculture certifiers like ASC and MEL. Activities during the campaign: Commissioned internet-based public surveys at the beginning and the end of the campaign to measure the awareness levels and opinions regarding shrimps. Made an illustration and launched a campaign website, disseminating a press release to 30 media outlets. Designed an…
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