(Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 30, 2025)

Nils Althaus

Switzerland will soon require warning labels on products associated with animal cruelty — for example, when piglets were castrated without anesthesia or geese force-fed. But not all animal advocates are celebrating.

The ice bath meant to stun the frog appears to have failed. It is still moving when it is lifted out. Hands in blue rubber gloves place it on a stainless-steel tray, cut open its back with scissors, and tear off its entire skin with a forceful tug. They then sever its hind legs, which will later be sold as a delicacy. From the pile of half-dead carcasses where it lands, a pale pink foreleg protrudes, flailing in the air as if it were still trying to escape.

The footage does not come from a horror movie but from a video recorded last year by the animal-rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in slaughterhouses in Vietnam. Although such methods are illegal in Germany, the frog legs they produce end up in German supermarkets and restaurants. The same is true of meat from piglets whose abdomens were cut open and testicles removed without anesthesia — or from calves whose horn buds were burned out with a red-hot iron to prevent their horns from growing.

One country is now taking a novel approach to drawing attention to such practices. Switzerland has passed a law requiring products associated with particularly cruel treatment to be labeled. After a two-year transition period, beginning in July 2027, the relevant food packaging and restaurant menus must carry warnings such as “Produced using painful procedures without pain relief” or, in the case of foie gras, “Obtained from force-fed ducks.”

Until Now, Labels Have Mostly Highlighted Better Conditions

What is especially new is the focus on the worst practices and the explicit acknowledgment of the animal suffering they cause. “Until now, the conditions in which animals were kept and treated were either described neutrally, or labels and marketing claims primarily highlighted better practices as a way for products to distinguish themselves in the marketplace,” says Monika Hartmann, who heads the Department of Agricultural and Food Market Research at the University of Bonn. “The Swiss labeling requirement is something entirely new.” It may be the first time anywhere in the world that farmed animals are acknowledged as sentient beings on meat packaging.

Will the new rule reduce animal abuse? Hartmann is cautiously optimistic. Such labels can have a direct effect by influencing purchasing decisions, she says, but they can also work indirectly. “Studies of warning labels for high levels of unhealthy nutrients show, for example, that manufacturers reformulate their products to avoid receiving a warning label.” Farmers and food producers may likewise change their practices to avoid warnings about painful procedures.

Animals raised on factory farms have a much harder time eliciting human sympathy than their relatives kept as pets or zoo animals. The Nuremberg Zoo’s killing of 12 baboons two months ago provoked an enormous public outcry. Activists entered the zoo and glued themselves to the ground, while hundreds of people took to the streets. The cruel practices of factory farming, which occur on a vastly greater scale, are silently tolerated by the overwhelming majority.

“We breed and kill 210 billion animals worldwide every year—more than the total number of human beings who have ever lived,” says animal-welfare advocate Lewis Bollard, putting the scale into perspective. Bollard directs farm-animal-welfare strategy for a philanthropic organization that seeks to channel donations to where they can accomplish the most. In many countries, practices such as animal fighting and the abuse of pets are prohibited by law, while cruelty toward farmed animals on an industrial scale is regulated far less strictly. The discrepancy is particularly striking when the same species is involved: Cockfighting is banned throughout almost all of the European Union, with a few exceptions such as the Canary Islands. Yet in chicken farming, beak trimming, the killing of chicks, and the routine acceptance of broken bones, behavioral disorders, and elevated mortality remain widespread. “That is why I consider this law so important,” Bollard says. “Ideally, cruel practices should be banned altogether. But at the very least, we should make sure that the conditions for a genuinely free market are in place. The most basic of those conditions is reliable information about what consumers are buying.”

The Practices Covered Are Already Banned in Switzerland

The new regulation succeeded in large part because it targets animal products from abroad. All the cruel practices now subject to labeling requirements have long been prohibited in Switzerland. In practice, domestic producers will therefore be spared the animal-cruelty labels—giving them a clear advantage in the marketplace. That also explains why the powerful Swiss farming lobby, which has defeated numerous animal-welfare proposals in the past, did not oppose the measure. Small farmers in particular support even more far-reaching policies: an import ban on foie gras and another on fur products produced using cruel methods. Both ballot initiatives have collected the required signatures and will soon be put before Swiss voters.

But the protectionist motives behind the new labels have also drawn criticism from Swiss animal advocates. “Switzerland produces more than 90 percent of the meat, milk, and eggs it consumes,” says Tobias Sennhauser of the animal-rights organization Tier im Fokus. “The measure therefore does not prevent animal cruelty. Consumers may even come away with the impression that Swiss products are automatically animal-friendly—a dangerous misconception.”

The proposal can indeed be accused of hair-splitting that borders on deception. Cutting chickens’ beaks without pain relief is prohibited throughout Switzerland and will now trigger a labeling requirement. Removing only the hook at the tip of the beak, however, violates neither Swiss law nor the labeling rules. Grinding down piglets’ teeth also remains legal and requires no warning, whereas clipping their teeth—a practice banned throughout Switzerland—must now be declared. The obvious conclusion is that the measure’s architects were motivated less by concern for animal welfare than by the competitive advantage it gives domestic producers. Sennhauser also criticizes the fact that enforcement relies on importers and retailers monitoring themselves, with authorities conducting only spot checks. “Our experience with fur labeling shows that as many as 80 percent of inspected retailers violate the rules. There is a serious risk that false or missing information will go unnoticed.”

It is too early to say how many animals the warning labels will spare. What is clear is that products untainted by animal cruelty reflect a widespread consumer preference. According to the 2023 Eurobarometer survey, 90 percent of European Union citizens believe that farming and breeding practices should meet basic ethical standards. Castrating piglets without anesthesia, burning out calves’ horn buds, and severing frogs’ legs are difficult to reconcile with that demand.