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What more will it take, Home Chef?

Dane Charbeneau
September 13, 2021 Updated: October 18, 2024
Consumers across the globe are demanding more transparency about the sources of their food— especially with regard to animal welfare. In response to public pressure, food companies are committing to do better. But one company has completely ignored calls to raise their standards: Home Chef.

In September 2020, Animal Equality launched a campaign targeting three meal kit service companies for their lack of a public commitment to higher animal welfare in their chicken supply chains. The companies, which include Gobble, Yumble, and Home Chef, have all either refused to disclose any chicken welfare policy they adhere to or whose standards do not match what their customers would expect.

With typical chicken farming:

  • Chickens are bred to grow at an alarmingly unnatural rate, causing leg deformities, organ failure, and heart attacks in these baby birds;
  • each flock, which consists of tens of thousands of birds, are kept in dim, windowless sheds and are unable to perform natural behaviors;
  • chickens are forced to live in their waste, with ammonia levels so concentrated that many suffer from painful chemical burns;
  • birds at the slaughterhouse are violently shackled upside down and then have their throats slit, often while they’re still conscious.

Visitors to the campaign page, MealKitCruelty.com, can vote for whom they believe to be the worst meal kit for animals and sign petitions demanding that the company executives take animal welfare seriously. After months of campaigning, Home Chef was the clear “winner” for the worst of the worst.

Home Chef has made questionable statements regarding animal welfare, marketing “high-quality” products and claiming to “source responsibly as often as (they) can.” Yet, without an established chicken welfare policy, Home Chef is most likely allowing some of the cruelest factory farming practices in its chicken supply chain.

Over 200 brands in the United States have adopted the Better Chicken Commitment, a comprehensive set of welfare reforms that address the worst abuses chickens suffer on today’s farms. Even Home Chef’s main competitors, including Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Sun Basket, have stepped up and ended the most horrific practices.

After a year of imploring Home Chef to raise its standards, the company is seemingly no closer. Hundreds of calls, emails, social media messages, and more have simply gone unanswered.

Join us in urging Home Chef — to do better for its customers and the animals in its supply chain by adopting the Better Chicken Commitment.

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