Over 9 billion (yes, that’s 9,000,000,000) chickens are raised for food in the United States every single year. This makes chicken the most popular meat eaten by humans and dogs alike. This mind-boggling number of chickens is not raised on the green pastures of small family farms that you might imagine.

Sadly, poultry farming in the USA is highly industrialized. Most of the chickens on our plates (and in our dogs’ bowls) spend their whole lives in the crowded, ammonia-filled indoor spaces of factory farms. This is not acceptable to us! Our love for our dogs should not come at the expense of farm animals. All animals we use for our treats and chews should be raised in humane, species-appropriate living conditions and treated with kindness and respect. This is why we have joined the Better Chicken Commitment.

When we started Campfire Treats back in 2017, we made it our mission to provide you and your dogs with the very best all-natural treats and chews made from 100% U.S.-sourced ingredients. From day one, we’ve only been working with human-grade ingredients. We’ve never used any additives or preservatives, and we never will. All of our products are 100% natural.

However, the more we learned about the industry we became a part of, the more it became clear that we needed to address animal welfare in our sourcing standards.

So we did.

Just human-grade U.S. raised chicken is not good enough!

We already transitioned to using 100% free-range chicken back in 2019, which we exclusively source from small family farms in Northern California. All our like-minded farm partners are committed to the highest animal welfare standards and are certified accordingly.

Today we’re proud to take our commitment to chicken welfare one step further by joining the Better Chicken Commitment and pledge that by 2024 we will:

1. only source chicken certified by the Global Animal Partnership (GAP); and
2. require all chickens to be processed in a manner that avoids live-dumping and live-shackling, and instead utilizes a pre-shackle, multi-step controlled-atmosphere processing system that’s widely hailed as more humane.

What does this mean in plain English?

Joining the Better Chicken Commitment means that we will apply even more transparent and meaningful standards to ourselves, and that we will only buy chickens raised and handled in strict compliance with the rules and regulations set by Global Animal Partnership -- one of the largest and most comprehensive farm animal welfare food labeling programs. Additionally, we will require that all chickens we procure are slaughtered in a humane way.

“All animals deserve compassion. In making this animal welfare commitment, Campfire Treats is raising the bar for pet food companies to address how farm animals are treated,” said Julia Anne Johnson, Manager of Corporate Policy, ASPCA Farm Animal Welfare. “With over 200 companies already committed to the Better Chicken Commitment, Campfire Treats has joined the movement to improve the lives of billions of birds.”

We will not stop here. We will continue to challenge ourselves and aim to keep on raising the bar for all farm animals we use to make our treats and chews.