The recent decisions by McDonald’s, Burger King, Costco, Kroger, Safeway, Oscar Mayer and many other leading food companies to eliminate gestation crates from their pork supplies signal a reversal in a three-decade-old trend in the pork industry that leaves most mother pigs confined day and night in gestation crates during their four-month pregnancy.

These cages are roughly the same size as the animals’ bodies and designed to prevent them from even turning around. Mother pigs are subsequently transferred into another crate to give birth, re-impregnated, and put back into a gestation crate.

This confinement system has come under fire from veterinarians, farmers, animal welfare advocates, animal scientists, consumers and others.

“Despite its own largest customers demanding changes, Tyson continues allowing its suppliers to cram pigs in crates so small they can’t even turn around,“ said Matthew Prescott, food policy director for The HSUS. “Tyson’s dwindling sales should be a wake-up call to the company that it needs to stop lagging behind its competition and customers on this important social issue.“

In addition to leading food companies, major pork producers have also announced plans to move away from gestation crates. Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, and Hormel Foods announced they will be 100 per cent gestation crate-free for company-owned operations within five years and Cargill is already 50 per cent gestation crate-free.