Panera Bread has adopted new animal welfare practices for broiler chicken producers that will be implemented by 2024. They are utilizing the Global Animal Partnership’s Broiler Chicken Standard, which is the same five step program used by Whole Foods. Hannah Thompson Weeman with the Animal Agriculture Alliance says HSUS helped the Partnership develop this certification, which centers around practices including cage or crate-free production.

She says broilers are the next focus area for the animal activist community, after their success in 2016 getting major sectors of the food industry to switch to cage free egg production.

Weeman says while Panera Bread isn’t the first national restaurant chain to adopt this type of animal welfare program, if the animal activists have their way it won’t be the last.

She says they expect to continue to see these types of policies come out in other restaurants and chains.