Animal welfare

At Noel, we are highly concerned about animal welfare, integrity and traceability throughout the food chain. That is why we have voluntarily adopted specific measures that go above and beyond the legal standards required. Additionally, control and external auditing systems are implemented throughout the entire process.

Our commitment to animal welfare takes form through our compliance with current law* in all phases of production, including farms, transport and abattoirs.

Obtaining the Welfair® certification is based on the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare, from which 12 specific criteria are established that are evaluated through the direct observation of our animals.

However, in our opinion, these measures do not go far enough. At Noel, we want to go above and beyond, so at some of our farms we apply additional measures to bolster our commitment to animal welfare:

• We have a veterinarian-approved health plan in place and the vet pays a visit every quarter
• Testing is performed every 15 days
• All our farms and the abattoir are audited by an external auditing team at least once a year
• We have 24h water reserves and a back-up feed factory
• We do not castrate our animals
• We have a computerised platform to enter data and control the animals’ welfare on a regular basis
• We make a monthly calculation of the medication consumption
• Cephalosporins and quinolones are only used as antibiotics as a last resort
• The raw materials at the feed factory are certified and the factory is also externally audited

Additionally, we integrate animal welfare throughout the food chain, from the farm to the abattoir, guaranteeing traceability at all times, right to final product.
This means having thorough control of all of the processes, from rearing and fattening to transport, slaughter, processing, distribution and finally, the sale

At NOEL we have attained the Animal Welfare certificate AENOR Conform, based on the European standards Welfare Quality and Awin®, Europe’s leading benchmark in Animal Welfare.