Anima International updates

UK campaign to end the suffering of fast-growing chickens

In the UK, we launched a major campaign targeting Pret A Manger over its broken promise to stop selling fast-growing chickens.

The company publicly committed to drop fast-growing chicken from their products in 2018, with a 2026 deadline. But they recently published a roadmap extending breed change to 2032 – a timeline we don’t consider credible and are not endorsing, given no progress made in the past 8 years.

During the pre-public phase of the campaign, we sent 600 letters to Pret store managers, and visited 400 Pret stores across Greater London to speak with staff. We are now increasing the pressure with a dedicated mobilization website, highly visible outdoor advertising, media ads, and public stunts involving a gigantic mechanical frankenchicken sculpture. We’re prepared to maintain our actions until Pret presents a realistic plan with a near-term fulfilment deadline.

France – Progress towards the end of cages for hens 

In France, where we work with wholesalers and public catering companies to end the sale of eggs from caged hens, we published a report tracking their progress towards 100% cage-free egg supply.

We’re seeing promising improvements across both sectors. The market share of cage-free eggs in out-of-home foodservice rose from 33% in 2024 to 42.3% in 2025, with many individual companies showing steeper progress (Pomona – 37% to 87%, Sysco – 29.5% to 52.8%, Pro à Pro 34% to nearly 60%). Six wholesalers have published transparent roadmaps to phasing out cage eggs by 2029, with several other companies expected to follow later this year. The transition is more advanced in the collective catering sector – five of the 14 companies have already phased out caged eggs, and others made significant progress (for example Newrest, from just 7% in 2024 to 60%)

The transition of wholesalers and collective catering to cage-free eggs is essential to eliminating cage hen farming in France. Implementation of these roadmaps will affect 1.5–2M hens alive at any given time.

Opportunities

Conference on Animal Rights in Europe (CARE) 2026 – tickets now on sale

Tickets for CARE 2026 are now available with a 35% Early Bird discount until June 30th. This is your chance to secure your spot at the lowest price. You can also buy a CARE Supporter pass and help subsidize tickets for those who are facing financial barriers.

We hope you can join us in Warsaw, September 17–20 along with hundreds of other animal advocates and organizations working to improve the world for animals. If you can’t make it in person, join us online via Swapcard from wherever you are.

Action in Brussels to push for an EU-wide ban on cages for farmed animals

On June 30, Anima International, on behalf of the End the Cage Age coalition, is staging a visual action in Brussels to mark five years since the European Commission committed to proposing legislation banning cages for farmed animals. The commitment came in response to the End the Cage Age European Citizens' Initiative signed by 1.4 million Europeans. It was one of the largest ECI ever submitted, but the legislation still hasn't been proposed.

The action will feature a large cage installation outside the Commission building, with actors styled as Commission staff sitting at a boardroom table inside. Members of the European Parliament from several member countries confirmed their attendance. The action will highlight the Commission’s democratic failure and urge them to deliver on their commitment to European citizens and millions of animals suffering in cages.

If you’re in Brussels, feel free to join us between 10:30 and 12:30 in front of the European Commission building.

Anima International Organization Updates:

Anima International Fellowship 2026
A reminder that applications for the Anima International Fellowship close on May 17th. The Fellowship is a fully funded 3-week in-person program for those considering working in effective animal advocacy. It will take place in Warsaw, September 1–20. We cover flights, accommodation, meals, and participation in the CARE Conference + offer a €1,500–€3,500 stipend. It’s open for applicants worldwide, no prior advocacy experience required.

CARE Conference 2026
You can apply for travel support to attend CARE Conference 2026 (Warsaw, September 17–20). If you want to attend CARE but the cost of travel is stopping you, we may be able to help. We review support requests on a rolling basis, so please apply as early as possible. Applications close July 1st.

In March our Polish team launched biznesbezklatek.pl (business without cages) which tracks the status of ~150 companies who have committed to phasing out caged eggs. Over the past decade in Poland, the percentage of hens outside of cages has tripled from 13% to 39%. The launch received media coverage including a live segment on national morning television.

Some recent individual wins: Aldi Poland is now confirmed 100% cage-free, following through on a commitment made in 2016. Polomarket, a mid-size retailer, phased out fresh caged eggs affecting roughly 64,000 hens per year. Finally, Eurocash, one of Poland's largest wholesale distributors, confirmed in writing that it will phase out all fresh cage eggs by 2026 and processed eggs from own-brand products by 2027.

In the UK, we attended a roundtable with government ministers following the release of the UK's animal welfare strategy. Ministers expressed confidence that the cage ban will be implemented and called recent Better Chicken Commitment withdrawals and the new Sustainable Chicken Forum (a business-led alternative) "disgraceful."

We launched the Anima International Fellowship - a paid 3-week in-person program starting in September for people who are highly aligned with the animal cause area and are considering a career in advocacy. Fellows will work alongside Anima staff on real organisational challenges, develop campaign and critical thinking skills, and finish by attending CARE Conference 2026.  No experience or specific background required. Applications close May 17th.

Speaking of CARE, the deadline to apply as a speaker has been extended to the 14th of April, so if you’re reading this soon after posting you may still have time to apply. The conference takes place from the 17th to the 20th of September and we’re looking to hear about topics such as campaign strategy, cause prioritization, fundraising, movement building, AI and organizational culture.

Finally, in late March we published “The good, the bad, and the fair cop” by our own Toby Schiønning, one of the co-founders of Anima International. In the article he introduces the idea of a 'fair cop' approach – a middle ground (but not a compromise) between aggressive public campaigning and passive negotiations with companies. The core argument is that campaigners can be tough and confrontational while still being seen as reasonable by the companies they're pressuring, and that this combination is what actually moves corporations to act.

Fulfilling their commitment to phase out caged-eggs, made at the start of our cage-free campaign in 2016, Lidl Poland (the second-largest retailer) has announced that they are now 100% cage-free, affecting millions of hens annually. 

To hold retailers accountable to their pledge to stop selling caged eggs by 01/01/26, our French team recently published an investigation into supermarkets that still sell caged eggs, which garnered significant national media attention. We estimate that between TV, radio and online coverage the news of the investigation will have reached several million people. The pressure from this prompted multiple responses from the retailers to the media about their cage-free commitments.

Our UK team, formerly known as Open Cages, has rebranded as Anima, reflecting their role as part of Anima International which is active across six countries and focused on the highest-impact interventions for animals. Our UK work remains centred on eliminating fast-growing chicken breeds, which currently account for ~90% of the over one billion chickens raised in the UK annually.

The animal advocacy movement in Central Asia is small but developing. Together with our partners in Kazakhstan, we announced the second annual conference on animal advocacy in Central Asia (CAAAF — Central Asian Animal Advocacy Forum), taking place on 04/04/2026.

Jobs

Anima International is hiring for a Campaigner in Denmark (hybrid, salary DKK 26,500–36,000). Find out more and apply by February 22nd.

Updates

• For the past six years, we’ve campaigned alongside other organizations in Norway to end the use of fast-growing chicken breeds – one of the cruelest practices in modern animal farming. Last month, Norway's meat industry announced complete elimination of fast-growing chickens by the end of 2027. These birds currently make up ~60% of over 70 million chickens farmed for meat in the country each year. The industry also announced introducing in-ovo sexing of egg-laying chicks to end the killing of male chicks in egg production. More in our blog post by Niklas Fjeldberg.
• As we continue working to end cages for hens in Poland, the percentage of hens in cages dropped to 63.68% by the end of 2025. Following dialogue with us, several companies fulfilled their cage-free commitments in January, including retail chain Netto (~287,000 hens per year), Stokrotka, Qubus hotel, and bakery chain Sowa – the target of a campaign we wrote about in a previous update.
• In Denmark, we helped raise 78,396 signatures (triggering a parliamentary debate) on a citizens initiative calling for amending the Animal Welfare Act to improve the lives of farmed pigs. The proposed changes include a ban on tail docking (illegal in the EU), ban on cages for pregnant and nursing sows, and better living space requirements, potentially affecting ~28 million animals each year.
• Meanwhile, in Bulgaria, our petition calling for a ban on cages for calves was discussed in the Parliamentary Committee on Civil Participation, with broad support from the politicians. It will now be discussed by the Agricultural Committee.

Opportunity for action

The European Commission is expected to respond to the Fur Free Europe European Citizen Initiative by the end of March. Despite the recent ban in Poland (EU’s largest fur producer), the Commission is considering regulations that will not meaningfully address the suffering of animals farmed for fur. Send an email to the Commissioners in support of an EU-wide ban on fur farming and import of fur products. 

Thank you for posting this @PabloAMC 🔸. In addition to the video linked in the post, we just published @Jakub Stencel's blog article with more context about the consultation. We do encourage everyone to take some time to respond.

Yes, all four stages before the interview (application, video call, role-specific tasks, and reference check) are eliminatory. However, we don't have a fixed quota of candidates who advance to each subsequent stage. We advance everyone who meets our quality threshold criteria at each stage, rather than selecting only a predetermined number of top performers.