Vienna, 08 May 2023 – With its latest food industry ranking, global animal welfare organisation FOUR PAWS, has taken on some of world´s biggest chocolate producers to assess their efforts to implement and advertise strategies for dairy reduction towards better animal welfare practices.

The outcome of this chocolate challenge is “choc-ing” to say it least: only two companies (Migros and Coop) are within the “Average” category*, four made it to “Poor” (including heavyweights Mars and Nestlé) while twelve participants e.g. Ferrero and Tony Chocolonely fall into the “Very Poor” category*.

While many of the companies do have vegan “milk” chocolate in their range, none of them actually have a concrete reduction strategy of dairy in place even though it is a known fact, that dairy is as bad for the animals as it is for the climate. FOUR PAWS urges the industry to set clear goals towards a reduction of animal-based ingredients and higher animal welfare standards.

Chocolate is synonymous with pleasure, celebration and comfort. None of which dairy cows get to experience. In the run-up to Mother´s Day, those who are thinking of buying milk chocolate as a gift for their loved one may want to choose a plant-based option instead, as the negative effects of the global dairy overconsumption at present are manifold to animals and the environment alike.

Dairy reduction is not on the companies’ agendas

Despite the majority (eleven out of 18) of the companies in the ranking already offering at least one dairy-free “milk” chocolate in which dairy is replaced by plant-based alternatives, such as oats, nuts or rice, none of the producers has a strategy to increase this share. A look in the respective CSR reports shows that none have any dairy reduction strategies, nor animal welfare policies meeting FOUR PAWS’ minimum requirements.

Overproduction of dairy bears many climate risks

Over 80 per cent of the world´s agricultural land is used for animal agriculture. With a continued production growth of animal-based products this goes to the costs of forests and other ecosystems. The land use for cow’s milk is more than tenfold that of plant-based milk. Measures must be undertaken to mitigate the impact on the environment. Livestock farming accounts for 1/6^th of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions of which one third is caused by the dairy production.

Background & Methodology

The FOUR PAWS Chocolate Challenge which is part of the Atlas Challenge ranking series, depicts the level of effort and performance of some of the leading chocolate companies in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands and South Africa on their dairy reduction strategies and plant-based alternatives. This was done through research conducted via publicly available information online, as well as by sending out a questionnaire between December 2022 and January 2023. Companies that did not respond or refused to participate, were evaluated solely by FOUR PAWS research on publicly available information online. Companies were evaluated in four categories – product portfolio, general animal welfare, animal-friendly climate measures and dairy reduction - and on a grading system – Very Poor (0-20%), Poor (21-40%), Average (41-60%), Good (61-80%) and Very Good (81-100%).