The Italian Competition and Market Authority has ordered Amadori to modify its communications about Italian chicken farms, which were deemed “potentially liable to mislead the consumer”.
The livestock industry bases its business model on the omission of certain truths, and seeks to prevent consumers from really knowing how meat is produced. To this end, it continues to feed them reassuring advertisements that speak of happy animals that are well nourished and lead idyllic lives in pastel-coloured rural settings. Sometimes, however, this fragile, glossy façade that seeks to conceal the horror of factory farms is unmasked. Such is the case with Amadori, a well-known Italian agri-food company specialising in the poultry sector, which has been forced to modify its communications about chicken farms after they were deemed misleading.
The ruling was handed down by the Italian Competition and Market Authority (Agcm), which assessed Amadori's chicken meat advertising as "contrary to professional diligence and potentially liable to appreciably distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the characteristics of the products". The Romagna-based company was specifically challenged over the information about the Italian chicken supply chain directed at the public and disseminated through its corporate website.
On its website, Amadori advertised, with particular emphasis, the cooperative's commitment to ensuring the best animal welfare conditions at every stage of the supply chain. In doing so, according to what the Agcm established, Amadori appeared to suggest that all the chickens it reared enjoyed the "best animal welfare conditions", when in fact special treatment is reserved exclusively for two niche product lines: free-range chicken and the 10+ chicken. Even with regard to the chickens that are supposed to enjoy better housing conditions — the 10+ ones — Amadori's communications proved to be misleading. The promotional claim read "greater space in the farm compared to the legal limits", whereas the investigations showed that the company was merely observing, as the Agcm reported, a "mere compliance with the maximum stocking density limit — equal to 33 kg/sq m".
Amadori, as required by the Consumer Code, has committed to correcting the false information published on its website; in a statement, however, it accused animal rights organisations of having exploited the affair. The company also states "that no infringement has been established by the Competition and Market Authority", explaining that it has "accepted Agcm's indications and made additions to its online publication with the aim of further improving the clarity of the messages on its corporate website regarding animal welfare, while maintaining that it had already fulfilled every duty of clarity of information towards the consumer".
The Agcm's decision, which came following proceedings initiated in October 2018, is the result of a complaint by Enpa, supplemented by investigations carried out by the Italian team of Animal Equality. In October 2017, Animal Equality had publicly exposed the appalling conditions of chickens reared in several Italian facilities, including an Amadori one. After months of undercover investigations, the organisation had published a video showing the chicken concentration camps from which approximately 95 per cent of Italian chicken meat comes. The footage showed animals crammed in their tens of thousands into closed sheds, chickens with leg deformities, severe respiratory problems or skin conditions, carcasses in an advanced state of decomposition among live animals, and workers inflicting violence on the birds.
The Agcm's ruling is undoubtedly an important piece of news for consumers, who have the right to more transparent communication from the Italian food sector. "This is a fundamental step forward," commented Matteo Cupi, executive director of Animal Equality Italia. "It demonstrates the importance of investigations and, above all, the fact that there may be several cases in which there is a significant discrepancy between what is communicated and reality." The news may not make much difference to the chickens — we don't imagine they care greatly about how their meat is advertised — but it could help to change consumer habits, leading people to eliminate or reduce their meat consumption or to stop buying meat from intensive farms.