Thursday 18th December 2008

M&S, Aldi and Co-op top table for animal testing in Ethical Consumer's Supermarkets Report

Ethical Consumer has released a new report on the social and environmental records of 19 supermarket and convenience store chains including a detailed examination of the chains' animal testing policies.

The results were compiled into the following simple rating table giving the supermarkets marks out of 4.

Marks and Spencer    4

Co-op   3

Aldi    3

Netto    2

Waitrose    1.75

Costcutter    1.75

Sainsbury's    1.5

Somerfield    1

All of the remaining companies, over half of those covered, including Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl, scored zero.

The examination investigated whether:

• the companies covered have a fixed cut-off date after which ingredients can not been tested on animals in their own brand household products, cosmetics and toiletries, or a less effective '5 year rolling rule' policy, whereby only ingredients animal tested within the last 5 years are excluded;
• they are signed up to the BUAV's humane standards for household products or cosmetics;
• they retail products made by other companies which are tested by other companies.

The examination also looked at which companies make positive statements on animal testing. Ironically some companies which don't make statements on animal testing, such as Aldi and Netto, actually score well whilst Tesco and Asda, which make positive statements about being against animal testing, in reality score poorly.

NOTES TO JOURNALISTS
Ethical Consumer's unique ‘ethiscore’ system rates companies on their social, ethical and environmental performance. Companies are rated in 17 categories across four main headings - Environment, Human rights, Animal rights, Politics.

Click here for more detail on ratings

Free PDFs of all reports in Ethical Consumer issue 116 are available on request. Please ring the Ethical Consumer office on 0161 226 2929
For all other related enquiries please contact Katy Brown on 07765522460