H-E-B's Commitment to Animal Welfare
Animal welfare is one of H-E-B’s core sustainability values: All animals, especially those raised for food, deserve a good life. After all, anyone who has ever raised animals knows how intricately—and emotionally—they become part of our lives. That’s why we believe it’s vital to help protect and preserve the animals & land of Texas for future generations.
We expect and monitor our partners to ensure the animals utilized in our products are raised, transported, and harvested with care & respect, so that you can purchase safe, wholesome, nutritious products at your neighborhood H-E-B. Building loyalty and trust with both our customers and vendors is a vital part of how we operate our business.
Throughout H-E-B’s 118-year history, we’ve continued to align and invest in our relationships with the highest quality vendors & stakeholders who have similar principles & goals regarding animal welfare. We’re proud that many of our H-E-B vendors are recognized as leaders and innovators in humane animal handling and have developed or become early adopters of animal welfare best practices.
Taking a Stand: H-E-B’s Animal Welfare Policy
H-E-B continuously looks for improvement opportunities or possible issues in the production systems across the animals’ life cycle. We have a wealth of knowledge to leverage – between academic partners, industry experts, and our own internal expertise – to define our initiatives for raising farmed animals’ quality of life.
All our vendor animal welfare programs must meet or exceed industry best practices or be approved by H-E-B, and our in-house experts personally monitor every stage of our supply chain from farm to store. Throughout the process, we evaluate three aspects of responsible animal health and welfare:
- Physical well-being: Animals should receive nutritious feed, access to water, timely medical care, and humane euthanasia.
- Mental wellbeing: Caretakers must minimize animal fear, pain, and distress.
- The ability to express natural animal behaviors: Animals should be raised in a manner that encourages and supports expressions of natural behaviors, such as grazing.
A Team on a Mission: Our Industry-Leading Animal Procurement & Quality Assurance Specialists
At H-E-B, people matter. We have a dedicated, collaborative meat team, starting with the buyers for our meat, seafood, and dairy product lines. We may be biased, but we believe our buyers are some of the most knowledgeable in the industry. H-E-B buyers:
- Actively participate in our extensive on-farm, live production, and plant audits.
- Are active in livestock and industry associations, working to influence the entire food chain to ensure the best treatment of animals.
- Form buying relationships with companies that are considered leaders in terms of quality and animal welfare.
To further ensure our products and vendors meet your high expectations, H-E-B has built a strong quality assurance team. The full H-E-B procurement and private label quality assurance team is made up of individuals with vast experiences in live animal production, harvest, fabrication, and retail environments.
The duties carried out by H-E-B’s animal procurement & private label quality assurance teams include:
- Inspecting & monitoring all prospective vendors and their products from around the world across all species and product lines. For source-verified product lines, this often includes the entire supply chain from the farm or dairy to the retail stores.
- Monitoring products and procedures daily at our warehouse locations by trained inspection teams to ensure that H-E-B’s quality and food safety standards.
- Participating in industry animal welfare, food safety councils and educational events, establishing a leadership role across the supply chain.
- Collaborating with leaders in the field of animal welfare, both in industry and academia, to ensure that our vendor standards are effective in caring for all the animals in our supply chain.
Our Duty of Responsible Care: H-E-B’s Animal Antibiotics Policy
While we offer you two complete lines of products from animals that have never been treated with antibiotics (H-E-B Natural and H-E-B Organics), H-E-B does believe in the responsible use of antibiotics to prevent, contain, or treat illnesses in animals. Why? Like humans, animals get sick.
- All producers of live animals may only administer antibiotics under veterinary guidance.
- If antibiotics are used, animals must follow a withdrawal period afterwards prior to entering the food chain. The withdrawal period varies for each animal species and antibiotic but is FDA-regulated and validated through random testing at processing facilities.
To learn more about the USDA’s research & requirements for antibiotic use in livestock raised for food, click here.
Ready to Learn More?
Tap the dropdown menus below for more detailed information on H-E-B’s beef & dairy, poultry, and pork welfare guidelines.
As Texans, we love beef – and H-E-B is the largest purchaser of Texas-grown beef! Roughly 80% of H-E-B private-label beef is harvested in Texas. Some H-E-B organic and grass-fed beef is purchased from other states, and some value beef from Mexico, to ensure we have the best suppliers & the quality products you expect.
How H-E-B private-label beef is raised:
- Most calves spend 16-20 months in pasture, and are then sent to feed yards, where they are kept with 20-30 other animals of the same age. Cattle are fed a combination of grains and roughage until they reach a mature weight, between 26-30 months of age.
- Cattle that stay on pastures their whole lives are sold as Grass-Fed or Pasture-Raised beef.
Even our chickens are Texans! Around 70-80% of H-E-B’s private-label chicken products are raised on independent family farms right here in the Lone Star State.
H-E-B is also one of the largest retailers of cage-free eggs in Texas. H-E-B poultry guidelines apply to both egg-laying birds and meat birds. To provide our customers with the highest-quality, most affordable poultry and eggs, H-E-B partner growers use three production systems:
- Conventional: Birds are raised in houses. Population density, lighting, and antibiotic usage meet individual bird requirements set by the National Chicken Council’s Code of Best Practices.
- Free Range: Birds live in conventional houses but have routine access to the outdoors.
- Pasture Raised: Birds are raised on pastures with minimum shelters provided to protect them from the weather.
Great Texas BBQ starts with great pork! H-E-B is proud to offer our customers a wide variety of high-quality fresh pork, from ribs to bacon, chops, roasts, and more.
H-E-B partner growers use three main production systems for H-E-B-brand pork products:
- Open Housing: Breeding sows live in group or open pens with 4 to 10 other sows, depending on the pen size. All H-E-B Natural Pork products come from open systems.
- Free Choice: Sows have individual stalls that they can enter and leave at will. Pregnant sows typically choose to spend 90% of their time inside of their free choice stalls.
- Pasture Raised: Pigs live exclusively in pastures with limited shelter for farrowing and protection from the elements.
When breeding sows are near the end of their gestation period, they are placed in farrowing stalls or pens. This allows for human assistance in the birthing process & protects piglets from being crushed.
What’s Next?
When you shop at H-E-B, you can take comfort knowing that all animals involved in the production of H-E-B brand meat products were given the utmost respect and care. H-E-B will continue to elevate our animal welfare standards, leading the way in improving quality of life for the entire food chain.
