Daniel Lusk

Opinion: Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. should commit to the same chicken welfare standards as competitors.

Daniel Lusk is a software engineer at The Humane League.

As a Tennessee native with a knack for following local and national food trends, it caught my eye that CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, recently relocated its headquarters to the stately Two Franklin Park building in Cool Springs.

What’s most notable about this move is that it’s accompanied by a larger company overhaul, including a new CEO, new advertising direction, and new brand ethos.

Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. are moving away from flashy bikini advertising for an emphasis on quality ingredients. The company declares to be igniting a movement toward all-natural products, including the introduction of an all-natural chicken fillet that features no antibiotic use, no artificial ingredients and no preservatives.

I truly appreciate the shift toward higher food quality, but there is one key aspect CKE Restaurants is leaving out in its quest to be on the cutting-edge of better ingredients, especially when it comes to chicken.

Nearly all chickens raised in the U.S. for meat consumption endure intensive conditions on massive industrial farming operations. Chickens are raised in filthy, overcrowded sheds, being devoid of anything related to a natural life. These birds have been genetically selected and bred for fast growth rate and higher yield of breast meat.

Compared to a chicken from 1925, today’s chickens grow 2.5 times larger in less than half the time. That means that the chicken in Hardee’s all-natural fillet reached an average slaughter weight of 6.2 pounds in only six weeks.

Because of their fast growth rate, these animals often suffer painful, crippling leg injuries. Many can hardly walk, so they spend most of their lives lying on a barn floor that is caked in the excrement of tens of thousands of birds. Chickens today are also prone to die of heart or organ failure because their cardiovascular systems can’t keep up with the rapid growth.

Those that reach slaughter weight face a violent death by being shackled upside down and slit at the throat, many while still fully conscious.

Consumers, animal advocates, and farmers who find these conditions unacceptable have been speaking out and creating change. In response, the food industry is seeing a rapid shift toward more progressive welfare standards for chickens raised for meat, which make up 88.7 percent of all farmed animals raised and killed for food in the United States. This movement is backed by the 88% Campaign, which advocates for companies to adopt higher welfare standards that address the most severe abuses chickens experience on the typical factory farm.

No federal laws exist to protect these birds from abuse, which means new welfare standards are being championed as a critical tool to reduce the intense suffering chickens currently endure. Burger King, Subway, Shake Shack, and Chipotle have joined over a dozen major restaurant chains that recently committed to sweeping welfare reforms for the chickens they purchase. Unfortunately, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. have yet to adopt these higher welfare standards.

CKE Restaurants’ re-branding and internal overhaul provide an optimal opportunity to also evaluate and modernize its welfare standards to be more aligned with its values. Now is an ideal time to commit to the same chicken welfare standards as its competitors, so Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. can sincerely embody their new ethos as the pioneers of quality.

Daniel Lusk is a software engineer at The Humane League, an international farmed animal protection group that works to reduce animal suffering.