Image Bruce Stewart-Brown, senior vice president for food safety, quality and live operations at Perdue Farms. Credit... T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

The move may also have a sweeping impact on the industry, forcing competitors to adopt similar practices. When Perdue announced that it intended to use no antibiotics, many of its competitors followed suit at the demand of their big customers.

“It will change the way we do business in so many ways,” Mr. Perdue said.

Numerous surveys conducted by the dairy and meat industries suggest that people care and want to know about animal welfare. For that reason, Mr. Perdue said, the company plans to issue annual reports on its progress on the new standards.

“We want to be held accountable,” he said. “If we mess up, we have to be prepared to say we messed up.”

In late 2014, Compassion in World Farming, an animal rights group, released video taken at a barn under contract to Perdue that showed birds with raw, red chests from sitting too long on litter laden with ammonia and feces. A few months earlier, Perdue agreed to stop using the phrase “humanely raised” on packages of its Harvestland brand of chicken to settle a lawsuit brought by the Humane Society of the United States.

Still, in an interview a year ago, Mr. Perdue was unapologetic, emphasizing that the Department of Agriculture had signed off on Perdue’s animal welfare standards.

So Leah Garces, director of Compassion’s American arm, was surprised this winter when Perdue invited her to talk about animal welfare with Bruce Stewart-Brown, its senior vice president for food safety, quality and live operations.