Smithfield Foods has announced that, by the end of 2012, it had changed 38% of its pregnant sows on its company-owned farms in the US to a group housing system from individual gestation stalls.
In a recent update, the company revealed that it will finish its conversion to group housing on all of its company-owned farms in the country by 2017.
President and CEO of Smithfield Foods Larry Pope said: “We’re proud of the commitments made by our international operations and, here in the US, we are continuing to make good progress towards our goal of phasing out gestation stalls for pregnant sows at all of our company-owned farms, as our 2012 conversion number reflects.”