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Animal Welfare

Our mission is to deliver the ingredients for a better life, and we strive to ensure that families have convenient access to a wide variety of fresh, high-quality and affordable nutrition options. Furthermore, as part of our commitment to corporate social responsibility, SpartanNash believes that the humane treatment of animals should play an important role in the production and sale of food and other essential consumer goods. These responsibility practices have earned SpartanNash the trust of consumers for more than 100 years.

Although SpartanNash does not own or operate any farms or animal processing facilities, we believe animals should and can be raised, handled, transported and processed in ways that ensure they are clean, safe and free from cruelty, abuse or neglect. SpartanNash also recognizes that best practices around animal welfare are part of an ongoing evolution based on various factors, including new information, technologies and agricultural advancements. We believe that animal welfare practices should be based on both science and ethics.

Our Animal Welfare Policy was most recently updated in February 2024.

SpartanNash’s approach regarding certain animal welfare topics is outlined below:

  • Cage-free Eggs: SpartanNash currently offers a variety of cage-free, certified organic, free-range and pasture-raised eggs in our corporate stores and to our independent retail customers. In 2024, we successfully converted our Michigan corporate retail stores and independent wholesale customers with locations in Michigan to a cage-free egg offering. We will continue to balance compliance with the laws and regulations of the states where we operate with our commitments to delivering affordable egg options for our consumers and increasing the percentage of cage-free eggs we sell.

    We previously committed to allocating more than 40% of consumer-facing space for eggs in our stores to cage-free. Since then, we increased cage-free shelf allocation beyond that target and increased our OwnBrands cage-free shell egg offerings from two to seven options for customers and shoppers.
  • United Egg Producers Certification: We expect the Company’s suppliers of shell eggs to comply with all requirements of United Egg Producers (UEP) certification, including their animal welfare guidelines.
  • FARM Program: We expect all suppliers of milk to our stores to participate in the National Dairy FARM Program. The Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) program focuses on five areas: Animal Care, Antibiotic Stewardship, Biosecurity, Environmental Stewardship and Workforce Development.
  • Artificial Growth Hormones (rBGH/rBST) in Private Brand Fluid Milk: Since 2008, our private-label milk, marketed as Our Family® milk, has been entirely sourced from cows that are not treated with artificial growth hormones (rBST). Furthermore, none of the conventional milk sold in our corporate retail stores is sourced from cows treated with artificial growth hormones.
  • Eternal Oceans Seafood Sourcing: We commit to partnering with suppliers utilizing fisheries that are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for wild-caught species or the Global Aquaculture Alliance Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) for farm-raised species. We support our suppliers’ relationships with seafood industry leaders, such as the Sustainable Fisheries, which allow for continual improvement in sourcing for all seafood we sell.
  • Genetically Modified Seafood: We do not sell genetically modified seafood.
  • PQA Plus® Program: We expect our fresh pork suppliers to comply with The National Pork Board’s Pork Quality Assurance® Plus (PQA Plus®) program. PQA Plus provides farmers and their employees with certification and training to address food safety, animal well-being, environmental stewardship, worker safety, and community.