Animal Welfare

As a retailer with a wide variety of products, we have a responsibility to ensure high standards of animal welfare in our supply chains. Our goal is to ensure that our suppliers adopt and implement high standards of animal welfare across our food and general merchandise supply chains.

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An illustrated scene of a farm with cows, pigs, chickens & other animals being cared for by people.

Target's Food Animal Welfare Commitments

Our food animal welfare commitments outline our requirements for suppliers of poultry, eggs, pork, dairy and beef. This includes our goals to transition to 100% cage-free shell eggs by 2025, pending available supply; to transition our pork supply to be raised in an open pen gestation system; and our stance on antibiotics and antimicrobial stewardship.

Our animal-derived raw material standards outline prohibited animal-derived raw materials in addition to additional requirements for sourcing other materials.

Compliance and training

All suppliers must comply with these standards. We also expect supplier partners to maintain written policies detailing best practices for each of the areas relevant to their products. Where possible, we perform product testing protocols to verify conformance with our commitments.

We provide training on animal welfare topics to internal teams responsible for buying or sourcing animal products, and we expect all of our suppliers to provide adequate training to all individuals involved with the direct handling of animals throughout the supply chain.