What to Make of Those Animal-Welfare Labels on Meat and Eggs

Shoppers buying a dozen eggs these days not only have to decide whether they want organic, free-range or cage-free. They also have to choose among cartons with labels like “American Humane Certified,” “Animal Welfare Approved” and “Certified Humane.” As the number of consumers concerned about animal welfare grows, such labels, or seals, as they are known in the business, are spreading like kudzu on packages of meat and eggs in the refrigerated cases of grocery stores, to assure shoppers that the cattle, pigs or chickens were treated well. But the labels may just as easily sow confusion or even mislead shoppers, who probably know little or nothing about the small number of organizations that create most of them and police the food producers that use them.