This post is an update on some great and perhaps surprising progress in China that feels worth sharing, and a sincere thank-you to the people I have gotten to know through EAG SF (recap at the end).
Why China, and Why Now
Approximately 75% of the world's farmed animals are raised in Asia, yet the region receives a disproportionately small fraction of global animal welfare funding. Within that, China represents an enormous concentration of both suffering and—increasingly—tractable opportunity.
Securing corporate commitments in China is genuinely challenging. The regulatory environment, business culture, and the sheer scale of the supply chains involved mean that this work requires patience, relationship-building, and careful engagement. Lever China has been doing that work for nearly seven years. The progress going on has not been publicized much outside of China, and that's partly by design - the work often requires discretion to be effective.
But as both the pace of progress and the size of the opportunity have grown, we (and I) wanted to share more, as I think they collectively tell an important story about the road ahead.
A Notable Milestone: Yurun Group’s Cage-Free Commitment
A recent commitment Lever China generated that was announced last month illustrates both the tractability and scale of what’s possible: one of China’s largest meat suppliers committed to sourcing 100% cage-free eggs and chicken across all of its global factories.
The company, Yurun Holdings Group, has two publicly listed subsidiaries and operations spanning seven major industries. This isn't a small food service operator making a niche commitment—it's a massive fresh, frozen, and processed meat supplier for both domestic sales and exports, and its procurement decisions reverberate across the country’s supply chain. When a company of this scale changes its sourcing standards, suppliers have to adapt. Meat chickens raised in cages is an important welfare topic, largely invisible in global discourse. Again, my earlier post goes into more depth on this, but the short version is: broiler chickens in China are frequently kept in multi-tier cage systems that are often roughly the same size as battery cage systems for egg-laying hens.
Yurun's commitment is part of a broader momentum that has been building over several years. Lever China has secured dozens of cage-free chicken and egg commitments from domestic Chinese restaurant chains, retailers, and food manufacturers since it began this work, and corporate receptivity has been growing. Yurun is the largest name yet on a long and growing list of committed companies that Lever China’s team can confidently point to when engaging with new companies on these issues.
Emerging Progress on Ducks (An Often Overlooked Issue)
In parallel, we're seeing early progress on ducks, an area that is also overlooked and in which China is by far the world's largest producer and consumer.
There's an interesting cultural dynamic at play here. Duck holds a special place in Chinese cuisine—dishes like Peking roast duck carry centuries of culinary prestige and are associated with quality and occasion. Yet the living conditions of ducks are almost never discussed, and most people (including many in the food industry) simply assume that free-range poultry is the norm for premium dishes. The reality is that roughly half of ducks raised for meat and the large majority of egg-laying ducks are confined in cages, with a total of around 2 billion ducks per year in cage confinement. But that assumption creates an opening: when Lever China’s team raises the issue, companies are often genuinely interested to learn more.
Two of policy pledges that Lever China secured in the past couple months illustrate this:
Xiao Diao Li Tang, a well-known traditional Beijing-style restaurant chain with around 60 outlets nationwide, became the first domestic restaurant chain in China to commit to a full poultry welfare policy, covering cage-free chicken meat, duck meat, chicken eggs, and duck eggs — all by 2030. This extends the usual chicken-and-egg scope to include duck in both meat and egg form, covering the two key poultry ingredients central to their menu.
Part of what makes this commitment interesting is why it happened. The owner was personally moved by the issue—he hadn't been aware of the scale of caged confinement for poultry until the Lever team reached out. Once he understood the scale of impact, he was motivated to act. His view was simply that a company like his should do the right thing. That personal motivation, combined with the fact that the procurement team had already been sourcing cage-free duck meat for one of its signature dishes, made the formal commitment a natural step.
- Xuri Egg Products, one of the largest duck egg producers and the largest duck egg exporter in China. Exports a very large volume to Hong Kong, SE Asia, as well as to Europe and the US (ex. they are in Costco in the U.S.) In the further past they used all cage-free methods, but over the last 10-15 years like the rest of the sector they have been moving heavily toward caged production and are roughly 50/50 today. They committed to make all of the duck eggs they export (which is about half of their total duck egg production/sales) cage-free by the end of next year. This is a defensive win in that it likely doesn't move ducks out of cages in the short term, but it prevents the company from converting an increasing amount of their existing production over to caged systems, which is what would certainly have continued happening in the coming years (since that is the path they've been on for the past decade), and it also helps ensure that nearly all future expansion barn builds will be cage-free. Their pledge will also make it easier to secure cage-free duck egg pledges from others. The company has about 1.7m egg-laying hens, and we estimate this new policy will prevent 200,000 - 500,000 of them (annually) from being gradually shifted into cage confinement systems in the coming years. (Committed in February - read more in English here; story in Chinese here.)
What This Adds Up To
The commitments described above aren't isolated wins. They're part of a pattern that has been building across China and the broader region for years, and one that points toward something bigger.
Many of the features that are often assumed to make progress difficult in China—scale, supply chain complexity, and rapidly evolving markets—can also enable change to happen quickly once key actors move. When major buyers shift their sourcing standards, suppliers respond. When companies see peers taking action, expectations begin to change across the sector. And when solutions are practical and aligned with business priorities, they can gain traction in ways that are difficult to replicate elsewhere.
China has the largest concentration of farmed animals in the world. That reality carries immense weight, but it also means that even incremental improvements—when implemented at scale—can translate into very large reductions in animal suffering. The work of the Lever China team over the past several years suggests that these improvements are not only necessary but also achievable.
More broadly, this points to a significant opportunity for the animal advocacy community. Regions with large and rapidly developing food systems are often where the majority of animals are raised, and where well-executed, locally grounded strategies can have an outsized impact. Progress in these contexts may look different from work in Western markets, but it can be equally—if not more—impactful.
The progress to date is an early signal of what sustained, context-specific engagement can achieve at scale, and I’m more optimistic than ever about Lever’s work in China and beyond.
As always, if you’re interested in learning more or exploring support, feel free to reach out to me or Lily Tse, Program Director, Lever Foundation: [email protected]
Reflection from 2026 EAG SF
With much fortune, I had the chance to attend the 2026 EAG SF last month (my first EAG!) Among many reasons why I wanted to attend, my primary goal was to tell others about the Lever Foundation, the work we do in Asia, and the scale of what's at stake there.
Honestly, I went in expecting skepticism. Much of our work involves securing corporate commitments in China, often with large producers, and the impact numbers we report (both in terms of animals affected and corporate reach) can sound unusually high. To give a quick picture: when we did calculations for our last year's report (for the period July 2024 - June 2025), Lever had secured 103 corporate policy commitments, helped shift 13 egg producers to cage-free systems, and moved 37+ million animals annually into cage-free or higher-welfare systems. For the 2025 calendar year, those numbers are substantially higher—in the range of 400 million animals benefiting annually (~50M poultry, ~50M fish, ~300M crustaceans).
The numbers are large because the problem is large — something I tried to lay out in my earlier post on the 10 billion chickens living in cages that most people have never heard of. It’s hard to believe if you haven't been watching this space closely.
Nonetheless, my experience at EAG was quite positive. I received plenty of thoughtful questions, constructive feedback/pushback, and genuine interest from many in the EA community to engage and support our work.
That meant a lot.
Congrats on the big win! Do you think that companies that export animal products are more willing to adopt cage-free practices? What I'm curious about is whether a fully domestic supplier would be less willing to go cage-free.
Hi Shanil! Great seeing you at AVA! As far as I know, there hasn't been a huge difference. Is there anything you saw that shows otherwise?
Great seeing you at AVA too Whitney!
I think the article you mentioned you'll publish in response to @Thomas B. 's comment would likely shed some light.
But here's what I'm wondering at the moment (and I may not be representing the argument 100% accurately):
What ACTAsia found was that corporate cage-free policy requires the end-consumer to have some sort of baseline concern for the welfare conditions of their eggs. Of which, they argue, there's a lack in China.
Without a large enough baseline care for welfare conditions, there isn't much pressure on the corporation, and there's more social ostracization pressure on activists trying to make cage-free happen. However, ACTAsia found that a fur-free intervention through the fashion industry was a pullable lever to start cementing an animal welfare foundation in China.
Looking forward to learning more!