This section of Lewis’ thoughtful piece stood out to me:
“None of this explains why the ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA need to be involved with the certification schemes. Animal Rising and PETA argue that their involvement serves no purpose other than to legitimize the schemes — and meat eating itself.
“I’m sympathetic to Animal Rising’s case here. They’ve likened stamping meat packages with the RSPCA’s logo to stamping cigarettes with the British Heart Foundation’s logo. I don’t think it’s quite the same, but I suspect future generations may disagree. RSPCA Assured used to be called “Freedom Food,” and I think a name like that would avoid conferring the RSPCA’s hard-earned legitimacy on a controversial product.”
This feels like a potentially actionable step that the RSPCA could take. Perhaps they could spin-out their accreditation scheme, under a new branding. This might deliver the purported benefits of certification, without the immense weirdness of the RSPCA themselves being seen to endorse the commodification and slaughter of animals.
The RSPCA’s brand/legitimacy/”halo” is amazingly strong in the UK, amongst the general population. It’s a much-loved, maybe even adored and treasured, national institution. It’s hard to quantify, but it seems very plausible that affixing that wonderful brand reputation to packages containing the dead bodies of slaughtered animals really does do lasting damage to our collective, long-term efforts to end animal use and abuse. Having the RSPCA logo on dead animal products on the supermarket shelves seems likely to legitimise the idea that it’s morally OK to eat animals—and that any animal with an RSPCA-assured logo on its dead body had an overall net-positive life, which seems far from certain.
I wonder if spinning-out the accreditation scheme is a ‘compromise’ that the RSPCA might consider making? It would be a (partial) win-win for everyone. The purported benefits of accreditation would still get delivered. The Animal Rising side of the debate would be (partially) satisfied. The controversy and reputational damage to the RSPCA would be somewhat assuaged. It wouldn’t be a complete “win” for anyone, but it seems like most parties to this debate would think it’s an improvement on the status quo.
The purported benefits of accreditation would still get delivered.
This seems false to me, without the RSPCA’s brand behind it, consumers would be less willing to pay a premium for the products, and supermarkets would be less keen to stock them.
Good catch. I think you are probably right, and that this point should be taken into consideration when thinking about whether the benefits of having the RSPCA logo on the dead animals outweighs the dis-benefits.
The original post would probably be better written as “*At least some of* the purported benefits of accreditation would still get delivered.”
I wonder, empirically, how big a difference the RSPCA vs non-RSPCA branding would make—I struggle to do anything other than guess about this.
Perhaps there are some consumers who might not buy the animals at all if they weren’t endorsed by the RSPCA—though I fear this might be a (very) low number, at least in the immediate term. Over the longer term, though, in terms of cultural shifts and norms, the number could be higher. Hhhmm...
This section of Lewis’ thoughtful piece stood out to me:
“None of this explains why the ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA need to be involved with the certification schemes. Animal Rising and PETA argue that their involvement serves no purpose other than to legitimize the schemes — and meat eating itself.
“I’m sympathetic to Animal Rising’s case here. They’ve likened stamping meat packages with the RSPCA’s logo to stamping cigarettes with the British Heart Foundation’s logo. I don’t think it’s quite the same, but I suspect future generations may disagree. RSPCA Assured used to be called “Freedom Food,” and I think a name like that would avoid conferring the RSPCA’s hard-earned legitimacy on a controversial product.”
This feels like a potentially actionable step that the RSPCA could take. Perhaps they could spin-out their accreditation scheme, under a new branding. This might deliver the purported benefits of certification, without the immense weirdness of the RSPCA themselves being seen to endorse the commodification and slaughter of animals.
The RSPCA’s brand/legitimacy/”halo” is amazingly strong in the UK, amongst the general population. It’s a much-loved, maybe even adored and treasured, national institution. It’s hard to quantify, but it seems very plausible that affixing that wonderful brand reputation to packages containing the dead bodies of slaughtered animals really does do lasting damage to our collective, long-term efforts to end animal use and abuse. Having the RSPCA logo on dead animal products on the supermarket shelves seems likely to legitimise the idea that it’s morally OK to eat animals—and that any animal with an RSPCA-assured logo on its dead body had an overall net-positive life, which seems far from certain.
I wonder if spinning-out the accreditation scheme is a ‘compromise’ that the RSPCA might consider making? It would be a (partial) win-win for everyone. The purported benefits of accreditation would still get delivered. The Animal Rising side of the debate would be (partially) satisfied. The controversy and reputational damage to the RSPCA would be somewhat assuaged. It wouldn’t be a complete “win” for anyone, but it seems like most parties to this debate would think it’s an improvement on the status quo.
This seems false to me, without the RSPCA’s brand behind it, consumers would be less willing to pay a premium for the products, and supermarkets would be less keen to stock them.
Good catch. I think you are probably right, and that this point should be taken into consideration when thinking about whether the benefits of having the RSPCA logo on the dead animals outweighs the dis-benefits.
The original post would probably be better written as “*At least some of* the purported benefits of accreditation would still get delivered.”
I wonder, empirically, how big a difference the RSPCA vs non-RSPCA branding would make—I struggle to do anything other than guess about this.
Perhaps there are some consumers who might not buy the animals at all if they weren’t endorsed by the RSPCA—though I fear this might be a (very) low number, at least in the immediate term. Over the longer term, though, in terms of cultural shifts and norms, the number could be higher. Hhhmm...