News Release:

Americans have a long history of enjoying rabbit. In fact, there was a time when it was as common for families to serve rabbit for dinner as it was to serve chicken. And as the Los Angeles Times recently reported, rabbit is back on American menus.

Our customers have long been asking us to sell rabbit. But first, we needed to ensure the rabbit we sold would be consistent with Whole Foods Market's high animal welfare standards. It was important to us to provide rabbits that were raised in better conditions than what the industry offered. So we set out to develop our own set of animal welfare standards, which began a rigorous four-year process to complete and implement standards that address the welfare issues in rabbit production.  

Whole Foods Market's animal welfare standards for rabbits are designed around their instinctual behaviors and include more than 75 species-specific requirements that ensure the overall health and well-being of the animals.

In conventional systems, there are no defined standards for raising rabbit. We've worked closely with our supplier to set up several innovative family farms to raise rabbits according to our standards. 

Whole Foods Market's new standards:

·         Take into account the fact that rabbits socialize in groups. While most rabbits raised for meat are kept in cages, we require group pens on solid floors with plenty of dry bedding, additional places to hide and climb, and room to forage, groom, hop, socialize and play.

·         Require that our rabbits have continuous access to drinking water, feed, roughage, gnawing blocks, tunnels and places for seclusion.

·         Ensure injured animals are treated in a timely manner.

·         Allow the mother rabbit time to nurse and recover before being re-bred, as rabbits are famous for their prolific breeding.

Our exclusive standards not only allow us to bring our customers the high quality rabbit they've been asking for, but also address the welfare issues in rabbit production systems.

Liz Fry
Global Quality Standards Team
Whole Foods Market 

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