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What’s important for good certification?

If you purchase animal-based food products, making sense of labels can often seem like an exercise in trust. It’s not helpful that we’re seeing more and more greenwashing and misleading marketing terms across a range of industries, especially food. So, we understand that, for conscious consumers looking for higher-welfare products, it can be tough to figure out what really means better animal welfare. 

RSPCA Australia
Friday, 10 April 2026

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This is why a robust certification program is important. With a program like RSPCA Certified, the logo on the packaging is the result of a multi-layered, stringent process, one that ensures the item has been produced in accordance with specific standards and values.  

For animal-based products, we know that consumers want to be able to trust that the animals have been raised with welfare as a priority, including an environment that provides a better quality of life, and when the time comes, a death without suffering or distress.

As many of the marketing terms and labels that we see don’t, and can't, give a full picture of how an animal was raised – an easy to recognise logo from a robust certification program can provide consumers that quick assurance in a few seconds.  

So, what’s important for a certification program?  

Make sure it has the big four. 

When it comes to how animals are farmed in Australia, standards and practices can vary between farming systems and individual producers, with many methods of (often painful) husbandry procedures legal, but not necessarily best for animal welfare.  

That’s why we recommend looking for four key features in a certification program: detailed standards that are publicly available, regular assessments, and independence. 

Having a detailed set of standards provides the foundation for a certification program which all other aspects can be measured against. For RSPCA Certified, that means standards that focus on addressing the physical and behavioural needs of the specific animal, as different species have different needs.  The program’s standards are also regularly reviewed to maintain a pathway of continuous improvement, aligning with science and animal welfare advancements, as well as innovations in farming technology.

Standards should be publicly available, so that those that want to know more can find information easily and at any time. That’s why the RSPCA Australia standards, as well as accompanying material, are publicly available on the RSPCA Australia website.

Equally as important is the inclusion of a regular assessment process. With RSPCA Certified, once a Producer achieves certification after initial assessments, it doesn’t end there. There’s a strict and multi-layered process for ongoing certification which involves RSPCA Assessors and Certification Team members that are part of the Certification Body.   

Lastly, a good certification program will be independent to remain objective and solely focused on the program’s mission, without influence from other parties. The RSPCA Certification Body within The RSPCA Australia Certification Body acts independently to the rest of the organisation, to ensure the decisions they’re making are focused solely on the animal welfare requirements. 

Why is all this important? 

As a consumer, you can drive change for some of Australia’s most intensively farmed animals through your purchasing choices. Retailers look for trends in purchasing behaviour to determine what to stock in their stores and how to best align their businesses with the issues and values consumers care about.

Marketing material or labels often don’t give the whole picture – but with a robust certification program like RSPCA Certified, you’re in a much better position to know the full story. 

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What’s important for good certification?

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