How can I make sure that I am buying livestock products that respect high animal welfare/health standards?

Since the 1980s the EU has put in place regulations to guarantee an acceptable level of animal welfare when it comes to food production in Europe. There are also a high number of initiatives coming from the food supply chain in response to the consumers demands for improved animal welfare. Existing quality labels are for instance integrating new elements in their specifications while animal welfare labels are currently experimenting with the consumer appetite for those products.

But the big question is: how to differentiate animal welfare standards from methods of production when, in the EU, you have always to respect animal welfare in every type of production? And how to manage to present it in the label when it is already mandatory to commercialize any animal product and, as such, you cannot indicate specifically “respecting animal welfare standards” in the label Special Eurobarometer 442, December 2015?

Sources:
– Special Eurobarometer 442, December 2015