The right balance between the price of meat and the welfare of the animals that died for it, has still not been found. This is proved by the fact that many supermarkets such as Jumbo and Dirk do not have the ‘Beter Leven’ one star label yet. People are saying they are willingly to pay more for their meat if the welfare of the animals improves, but is this really the case? Do the poorest people in our society also agree to this?

Welfare organizations keep pushing the supermarkets to get the ‘Beter Leven’ one star label. Therefore the welfare organizations and the supermarkets Jumbo and Dirk have come to an agreement in 2013 to stop selling pig meat without the label in 2015. However according to ‘Varkens in Nood’ the supermarkets have violated this agreement. This resulted in a trial in which ‘Varkens in Nood’ sues Jumbo and Dirk.


Dirk responds to this by saying they have never even come to such an agreement. They say to have only received letters from ‘Varkens in Nood’ and ‘Dier & Recht’ in which is stated that the supermarket violates the law. As a response they have asked for more information but they never received it. ‘Varkens in Nood’ keeps recalling the agreement made that states the supermarkets will only sell pig meat with the animal protection label in 2015. Dirk says they only have agreed to produce meat that is more durable, but that they had never agreed to any kind of label.

Jumbo says their meat is durable enough, but that they just do not want to put the animal protection label on their meat. They say their meat suffices the welfare standards for the one star label; it is just not shown by the label.

Other supermarkets are also selling pig meat without any label, but among these supermarkets Dirk and Jumbo sell the most of it according to an investigation done in January. Another investigation proves that last year 40% more non-durable meat was sold than the year before.

On the other hand the supermarkets are already selling more durable meat, even double the amount of last year. However this increase is still not big enough to cope with the amount of non-durable meat sold, because in four out of five cases the offers include non-durable meat. With the trial the animal welfare organizations are trying to force the supermarkets to advertise the durable meat more than the other types of meat.

The victims of the more expensive, durable meat would be the people on social assistance. They are said not to have the money for more expensive meat. However it is proven to be much healthier to eat less meat, so when the meat gets more expensive those people are immediately improving their eating habits.

To my opinion the supermarkets do not have convincing arguments why they would not sell meat with a label on it. They say that their meat is up to the standards of the one star label, so why not put the label on it? In that way people can see they are buying the right kind of meat. I agree with the animal welfare organization that the alternatives for non-durable meat should be advertised more; as long as the supermarkets will keep advertising the regular meat, the durable meat or the meat replacement products will stand no chance. The low price of meat will also result in people eating more and more meat what is bad for the environment. Actually it is a never ending circle: the supermarkets sell cheap, non-durable meat, so if one supermarket sells the more expensive durable meat, it will not be able to compete with those other supermarkets anymore and that results in no supermarket daring to take a step in the right direction. The meat lovers will just have to take a step back or be prepared to pay more for their o-so-loved meat.