Read on to explore the full detail of our priorities until March 2027.

Priority 1: Change the world for broiler chickens in the UK. Our plan Our primary focus until March 2027 is on advancing the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), urging supermarkets and other businesses to prioritise the welfare of chickens in their supply chains. We'll ensure companies are keeping to their pledges, collaborating with groups like the Open Wing Alliance (OWA) for success across Europe. As the vast majority of the UK food industry, except our supermarkets, is committed to raising the minimum standard to the BCC, our main focus will be on getting action from retailers.

Why this matters The BCC addresses crucial issues in chicken farming, impacting over a billion broiler chickens raised every year in the UK. Committing to the BCC means chickens will no longer be bred to become Frankenchickens - chickens who grow so fast their bodies can’t keep up, causing immense suffering. They will also have more space, natural light, and enrichment, which is essential in reducing their suffering.

And the impact doesn’t end here in the UK, as UK companies setting better standards helps drive global improvements in animal welfare too.

What success looks like We want to see tangible changes in chicken farming practices, with companies making new commitments, increased transparency, and a shift from standard factory farming of chickens towards the BCC. We aim to shift even more of the UK market share towards the BCC standards - from approximately 28% in 2023, to 40% in 2027.

Priority 2: End cages for laying hens in the UK and support global progress for hens. Our plan Our focus here is on holding companies accountable to their promise of eliminating cages for egg-laying hens by 2025, in collaboration with the OWA. We will also publicly campaign for a cage ban when strategic, with a concerted effort on legislative advocacy behind the scenes.

Why this matters In 2023, we reached a veritable milestone as, following years of campaigning by animal campaigners, under a quarter of UK eggs were sourced from caged hens, compared to over half a decade ago. But this still equates to around 8.7 millions hens in cages, and they cause immense suffering. In a cage, a hen is practically unable to carry out essential natural behaviours such as dust-bathing, scratching the ground, and wing-flapping. Transitioning to cage-free systems will drastically improve the lives of egg-laying hens by reducing their suffering.

What success looks like We will make sure that companies who pledged to go cage-free by 2025 are following through on this promise. We aim to ensure that by 2027, 90% of hens are free from cages in the UK, ideally in free-range and organic systems.

As there are still roughly six billion hens suffering in cages globally, with 70% of all caged hens living in Asia, we’ll also support global cage-free initiatives, in partnership with the OWA, to help drive change for hens around the world.

Priority 3: Pioneer new and effective interventions for farmed animals. Our plan Our goal is to ensure the UK and Scottish governments have incorporated stunning for farmed fishes into legislation by 2027; and build towards an impactful corporate meat-reduction campaign by 2030. These efforts align with our mission to improve conditions for farmed animals and expand our impact beyond chickens.

Why this matters Fish farming poses risks to millions of fish, and our work on fish welfare brings much-needed focus towards this under-resourced area of animal advocacy. Currently, fishes have virtually no legal protections and do not have species-specific stunning parameters in legislation like other animals raised for food, risking them suffering by being ineffectively stunned before slaughter.

And encouraging meat reduction aligns with our commitment to animal welfare and environmental sustainability. With these areas of work, we are looking to build our foundations to set us up for ramping up in intensity in the future.

What success looks like Success involves the passage of legislation to incorporate stunning parameters for farmed fishes, increased awareness of fish welfare issues, and the development of corporate meat reduction strategies.

Priority 4: Grow, diversify, and engage our base of support. Our plan By the end of 2027, we aim to significantly grow, diversify, and engage our supporter base - whether that’s our community of volunteers, our online activists, or our donors. This helps bolster our campaign efforts for animals: the bigger and more powerful our network of support, the bigger impact we can have. We want our supporters to know just how much their support means to us.

Why this matters Our supporters are vital for achieving our aims for the animals. Engaging them effectively and retaining them is quite simply crucial to our long-term impact and organisational sustainability.

What success looks like We aim for a diverse supporter base which provides a consistent and reliable source of people power, and which is a cornerstone of our campaign work.

Priority 5: Move toward becoming financially self-reliant. Our plan We aim to increase our own direct fundraising, reducing our reliance on our grant from THL in the US, which currently makes up a significant proportion of our funding. This involves ramping up our fundraising, securing long-term funding, fostering a culture of fundraising across the organisation, and diversifying our income sources.

Why this matters More varied sources of income will make us stronger as we will be less reliant on one specific source, which puts us at risk. As a result, it enhances organisational resilience and allows us to plan more effectively, ensuring our ability to continue our vital work for animals.

What success looks like We have a number of detailed metrics we’ll be monitoring to ensure success, including the growth of our donor base, the variety of our income sources, and the integration of fundraising into our campaigning work.

Priority 6: Be a great place to work. Our plan We want to achieve a healthy, inclusive work culture where people are supported to do their best work. We want our staff to have sustainable workloads, a healthy work/life balance, and opportunities for connection and shared purpose as a team. By investing in team members’ growth, personal development, and satisfaction, we can increase our impact and effectiveness for animals.

Why this matters Our team members are central to our success for animals. Not just that, but taking good care of our staff is simply the right thing to do. Having an inclusive, welcoming, and supportive workplace helps us attract and retain talented team members.

What success looks like Staff are performing well and thriving in their roles: they have what they need to succeed, feel empowered to achieve their goals and ambitions, feel productive, and have opportunities to have fun.

We want our team members to feel comfortable being themselves at work, and can bring their diversity of lived experience, knowledge, background, and identities to strengthen the work of THL UK.

We know change is possible but looking back over the last century of campaigns for animals in the UK, we also know that progress takes more time than any of us would like. Time in which animals continue to suffer.

In the UK, chickens and fish are farmed in the largest numbers, by a wide margin. When combined with the intensity of their suffering, it is clear we must prioritise them. Our pragmatic approach is rooted in sound research and science. That means we are certain the changes we ask for from large corporations and the Government will meaningfully reduce suffering.

An end to the consumption of chicken and fish would be the ultimate solution to the suffering they endure, but as animals will continue to be raised and killed for food for the foreseeable future, we owe it to the current and future animals trapped in those systems to push for practical, achievable changes that will prevent the worst of their suffering, and allow them to experience lives worth living.

Incremental change is a hallmark of all progressive movements, be that social justice or environmental, and the animal movement is no different. By improving standards for animals, whether that’s for companion animals, farmed animals, wild animals, or through progress toward the end of animal use by humans, we can pave the way for legislative changes and increased public understanding, resulting in widespread concern for animals.

The Humane League UK exists specifically to end the abuse of animals raised for food. Without the work we do - to drive up standards in animal farming - taking place alongside the work others do, including to end animal use, we believe millions of animals would fall through the gaps of progress. They would be left to live lives of immense suffering with little hope for improvement or change. We know what we do is an essential part of changing the world for animals, and that’s why we work so hard to make it a success.

Chickens

Avian intelligence has generally been neglected in the study of animal cognition. Even among birds, chickens have been overlooked and research has focused on crows and parrots. However, a number of studies have examined the cognitive abilities of domestic chickens and have shown that chickens are cognitively intelligent, they can demonstrate self-control, they communicate with one another in a complex way, and have the capacity for reason and logic.

Laying Hens

Improving the welfare of laying hens is possible with a simple solution; the end of cages. There is very clear scientific consensus that cages are bad for the welfare of laying hens. Studies have been repeatedly demonstrating this fact for many decades. The improvements brought by EU legislation in 2012, when colony cages were implemented, have subsequently been demonstrated to offer limited welfare improvement. The vast majority of companies and government officials do not contest these facts.

Broilers

The causes of suffering for chickens raised for meat are multi-faceted and as such the solutions we call for must be too. The comprehensive standards of the Better Chicken Commitment are backed by a wide range of leading animal welfare organisations and poultry experts following a review of over 140 scientific reports including ground-breaking studies on the impact of breeding on broiler welfare from Guelph University and the RSPCA. Scientists at the Welfare Footprint Project have subsequently analysed the BCC and found that adoption of the standards results in a 66% reduction in disabling pain, 24% reduction in hurtful pain, and a 78% reduction in excruciating pain.

Fishes

While fishes farmed for their meat comprise a relatively small number of species, fishes as a broad group are extremely varied in their welfare needs. Their cognitive abilities and welfare have been extremely under-studied and those studies that do exist can sometimes be hard to translate across species and settings. This makes developing policies for farmed fishes much more complicated than land-animals. However, there is one key area where the science is clear and the suffering is immense; slaughter.

The law which requires animals to be stunned before slaughter does not apply to fishes. Studies have shown death without stunning either by slow chilling in iced water, asphyxiation, CO2 saturated water or the cutting of gills is a drawn out, painful and stressful experience for a fish. We have been calling for stunning to be a legal requirement for farmed fishes since 2021. The Animal Welfare Committee, an advisory body for the government, has subsequently joined us in this call for legislation to protect fishes at the time of killing in a comprehensive scientific report.

To be successful we will focus our energy, resources and funding on the most impactful actions. We will be nimble and innovative; adjusting and adapting as situations change and develop.

They say if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. We have a long way to go to change the world for animals, so we must ‘go together’. Collaboration is a cornerstone of how we work and we welcome, respect, and empower others, appreciating the value of every individual.

But perhaps more important than anything; we will be guided by our unwavering dedication. We will be as relentless in our fight for the animals as the food industry has been in its drive for profit at the expense of them.