A Case Study on Corporate Campaigns for Farm Animal Welfare

Editor’s note: This article was published under our former name, Open Philanthropy.

In recent decades, the farm animal welfare movement has improved conditions for hundreds of millions of animals through corporate campaigns. A new case study, commissioned by Open Philanthropy as part of the History of Philanthropy project at the Urban Institute and conducted by Dr. Shane Hamilton at the University of York, examines how this transformation occurred and what factors enabled its success. The study traces the movement’s evolution from early 19th-century anti-cruelty efforts through to the sophisticated corporate campaigns of today, providing a timely historical perspective on the development of farm animal advocacy.

Below, we summarize the case study (with the help of some visuals not included in the case study report). We’d also encourage anyone with an interest in the movement to check out the full report (PDF). 

The scale of impact

Since the early 2000s, corporate campaigns have driven substantial changes in how major food companies approach animal welfare. Over 3,400 companies worldwide – including major brands like McDonald’s, Walmart, and Starbucks – have committed to only using cage-free eggs, with fewer but similar commitments extending to crate-free pork and higher welfare standards for chickens raised for meat.

Thanks in large part to these campaigns, the share of hens that are cage-free has increased from 10% to 46% in the US and from 42% to 64% in Europe. These recent gains represent significant progress compared to earlier periods, when welfare improvements struggled to keep pace with the rapid industrialization of animal agriculture.

The share of hens in cage-free systems has increased in both the US and Europe (including the UK). Source: US Department of Agriculture data (Egg Markets Overview & Monthly Reports); EU Commission data; UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs data.

A pragmatic turn

The case study identifies a crucial shift in how the animal advocacy movement approached its mission. While philosophical divisions between different approaches to animal protection persisted, a subset of advocates in the late 1990s and early 2000s began developing more strategic methods for creating change. This emerging pragmatic wing demonstrated that focused campaigns with specific, measurable goals could achieve concrete improvements for farm animals.

Leaders like Leah Garcés (now president of Mercy for Animals) and Aaron Ross (co-founder of The Humane League) exemplified this transformation. Ross concluded that confrontational tactics were insufficient: “smashing a window was not going to stop factory farming.” Instead, these advocates developed approaches that could work within existing systems to achieve concrete improvements for animals.

This pragmatic approach gained crucial support when new sources of philanthropic funding began to appear in the early 2000s. These enabled advocates to professionalize their operations and develop more sophisticated strategies.

Strategic innovation and industry structure

The case study documents how advocates learned to leverage the concentrated structure of modern food systems. Major food retailers and restaurant chains have dramatically expanded their market share and buying power since the 1980s, with companies like McDonald’s alone purchasing billions of eggs annually. This concentration created both vulnerability to reputational pressure and the potential for considerable impact through individual corporate commitments.

The food retail sector in the US has become more concentrated since 1990, as shown by the market share of the top 4 retailers rising from 13% to 33%, and the top 8 from 24% to 42%. Source: Zeballos, Eliana, Xiao Dong, and Ergys Islamaj. January 2023. A Disaggregated View of Market Concentration in the Food Retail Industry, ERR-314, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 

Advocates developed sophisticated approaches to corporate engagement, building on in-person protests with shareholder activism, online mobilization, and collaborative standard-setting. The movement increasingly employed professional approaches drawn from ideas in business, law, and communications. As Aaron Ross noted, “sometimes the most radical thing you can do is put on a suit and go meet with an executive.”

Institutional innovation

The movement created innovative institutional structures to reach more animals. The Open Wing Alliance, established in 2016, enables advocates around the world to coordinate cage-free campaigns against multinational corporations. The Better Chicken Commitment united animal organizations around specific, science-based welfare standards, creating consistency that made it easier to convince corporations to adopt the “consensus” approach. These collaborative approaches helped overcome the limitations of earlier, more fragmented advocacy efforts. 

An important innovation documented in the case study is the strategic use of corporate governance mechanisms. Organizations learned to file shareholder resolutions, engage with sustainability teams, and work with investors concerned about ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) risks. This approach integrated welfare improvements into corporate decision-making structures, rather than leaving them as one-off commitments. By making animal welfare a board-level concern linked to reputational risk and long-term value creation, advocates increased the likelihood of meaningful implementation and reduced the risk of backsliding.

Global expansion and adaptation

In countries with less concentrated food systems or different regulatory environments, advocates are modifying their approaches. The case study examines how strategies developed in the U.S. and Europe are being adapted for different contexts.

This global expansion highlights both the universal applicability of corporate campaign strategies and the need for cultural and economic adaptation. The movement’s ability to share knowledge across borders while respecting local contexts has been crucial to its international growth.

As of mid-2025, the Open Wing Alliance has 96 members covering 68 countries. Source: Open Wing Alliance 

Ongoing challenges and opportunities

Despite the movement’s considerable success, the case study identifies ongoing challenges that represent opportunities for continued innovation. When corporations failed to follow through on their commitments, corporate campaigning groups developed new accountability mechanisms and transparency tools. The movement has also expanded beyond cage-free campaigns to address other pressing welfare issues, with the Better Chicken Commitment demonstrating how science-based standards can drive industry-wide change.

The report notes additional frontiers for growth, including the need to adapt successful strategies to emerging markets where meat consumption is rising rapidly. By developing approaches suited to different environments, advocates can shape the trajectory of animal agriculture in countries where corporate campaigns may face greater hurdles. These challenges suggest a movement still in its growth phase, with considerable potential.

Conclusion

This case study demonstrates how the farm animal welfare movement became a sophisticated ecosystem achieving measurable improvements for billions of animals. The key factors enabling this transformation — pragmatism, corporate campaigns, professionalized advocacy, and collaborative governance structures — offer lessons for how focused advocacy can achieve large-scale change even in entrenched industries. As factory farming continues to expand globally, the evidence suggests that corporate campaigns, despite their limitations, represent one of the most promising approaches for reducing animal suffering at scale.