BQP, Pilgrim's Europe's in-house 100 percent higher welfare pig farming operation, marked its 40th anniversary with a celebration event at the Suffolk Food Hall in Ipswich. Established by Pilgrim's Europe Agriculture Director Andrew Saunders in 1979, the organization has evolved to become the UK's leading pig farmer and award-winning producer of higher welfare pigs, consistently winning top honors in key industry awards year on year. “Our core strategy at BQP focuses on the production of top quality, higher welfare pigs, with considerations of efficiency and CSR responsibilities at the heart of this, and safety as a condition,” Saunders said, speaking at the event. “For 40 years, we’ve worked with the best suppliers who have helped us to continue to push forward with the latest farming innovations to become the best in the industry. We are also proud to count two of the UK's major retailers, Waitrose and Co-op, as our core customers.” “We're already looking ahead to the next 40 years of BQP, including attracting a new generation of farmers and enhancing our green credentials. Sustainable farming will remain a key priority as we strive to set new benchmarks in industry practices. As well as exploring solutions to reduce and minimize our impact on the environment, we're proactively evolving our processes to ensure we have a culture that supports our people, our animals and our planet.”

In the U.K. and Europe, Pilgrim’s Pilgrim's Europe has been working with Professor Niamh O’Connell at Queens University Belfast (QUB) to further understand the lived experiences of birds and automate measures of bird behavior. In 2022 the QUB team was awarded $1 million from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research ‘SMART Broiler’ competition in conjunction with McDonald’s. Pilgrim's Europe was the industrial partner and supported the project, with the key aim to develop camera-based technology to provide automated behavior and additional management insights - called FlockFocus. The initial outcomes from the project have shown that the birds can be identified and that gait scores and play behavior can be automatically captured within the field of vision of the camera. One of the biggest challenges in this field of research is to understand the experience of the individual. Over the last 10 years we have been exploring how to track individual birds. In May 2023 in partnership with Pilgrim's Europe, the first paper of its kind was published entitled ‘large variation in the movement of individual broiler chickens tracked in a commercial house using ultra-wideband backpacks’. This provides fascinating insight on the level of individual variation that exists within flocks and for the first time documents the activity levels up until depletion. The findings open up a plethora of opportunities to better understand how to design environments to enhance bird welfare and performance.

Richard Mellor, a BQP pig farmer, has been awarded Pig Farmer of the Year 2021 during the Farmers Weekly Awards, which recognizes hard-working and innovative farmers across the U. K. BQP, a Pilgrim's Europe subsidiary and the U.K.'s leading pig farming operation, represented two out of three finalists, also including Ryan Dyer of Hall Farm, Norfolk. Pig Farmer of the Year is a highly competitive category, requiring pig producers to meet top standards, such as high levels of output, top technical performance, commitment to staff management and a drive to improve production and welfare. We are all very happy for Richard, who adds an extra award to his growing list of achievements. To have a BQP farmer recognized as Pig Farmer of the Year proves how well the model is working and what can be achieved by this unique partnership, said Andrew Saunders, Pilgrim's Europe Pork Agriculture Director. Since taking on the 346-acre county council Grange Farm seven years ago, Mellor has made great strides to improve production and make the business as self-sufficient as possible. The farm houses a 990-sow outdoor breeding unit on a two-week batch production system, with weaned piglets transferred at five weeks old into the BQP Pilgrim's supply chain. I am thrilled that Richard has won. His attitude and willingness are why we see him as the benchmark of success within the BQP family, said Simon Barber, BQP Breeding Farms Fields Person. He is always eager to try new ideas and has amazing attention to detail. But even better is his willingness to share best practice and open his farm to visitors so they can see and understand his success the very reason he is consistently one of BQPs highest performing farms over the past four years. I also want to congratulate Ryan as a finalist, thank the BQP team who work closely with our farmers like Richard and many more. Thanks to this award and others, we can shine a light on our BQP partnership, Saunders added. These awards are also a way of encouraging others, who are thinking of joining the BQP family, to see what can be achieved through our support and guidance.

Pilgrim's UK's agriculture division is working in partnership with the National Farmers Union UK (NFU) to explore the impact of environmental temperature conditions on the welfare of pigs during transportation. During 2022, Pilgrim’s Pride assisted with a project led by NFU to monitor temperatures of pigs during transport. The project was created in response to a previous Welfare in Transport consultation by the U.K. Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), proposing to limit livestock journeys based upon exceeding minimum and maximum ambient temperatures. This project was completed as part of a wider industry working group, involving the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) and other processors across pigs, sheep, and cattle. Pilgrim’s UK supplied data from its onboard trailer temperature monitors, during a forecasted period of cold weather. Drivers also completed online questionnaires to confirm the number of pigs being carried, journey start and end points and timings, the ambient temperature recorded at loading and unloading, and any reported issues with welfare at loading or unloading. The information was submitted confidentially and will be presented back to industry by BMPA once they have enough data collected in both hot and cold weather.

Through an industry-funded Ph.D. studentship, Moy Park and QUB partnered to investigate alternative strategies to hatching and managing broiler chicks and the lifetime impact of these practices on chick health, welfare, and performance. With birds reared in the Moy Park Performance House, the study evaluated a range of alternative systems including in-house hatching, several variations of in-hatcher feeding and drinking, and a wet starter feed offering upon placement, all alongside typical commercial practice as a control. Ultimately, the study found that the alternative systems did not improve bird performance and provided inconsistent and often poorer outcomes compared to commercial practices. However, out of the alternative systems evaluated, in-house hatching was observed to be the most promising. The second trial conducted as part of this thesis investigated if current industry standards for chicken house lighting during the first 7 days of life provides the optimum environment for chicks. This research question was posed based on the observation that traditionally chicks spend significant amounts of time under the mother hen, shaded from the external light. A large-scale commercial study was undertaken to evaluate three treatments, including a standard lighting program that is typical across the U.K., increased darkness duration in the first 7 days, and treatment that allowed the chicks optional access to shelter/covered area that provided darker areas for the first 7 days. This study ultimately suggested that long day lengths during early life are not essential to maintain production performance in broiler chickens. It also presented a novel approach to environmental enrichment using dark shelters, which appears to have benefits for bird leg health.

In addition to capturing the positive behaviors that our birds exhibit every day, Pilgrim’s Moy Park continues to try to find new ways to encourage new opportunities for the birds to display natural behaviors – one such behavior is ‘feed running’. Although the name can cause confusion, it is essentially when a birds picks up small novel objects such as chick paper or large pieces of straw, and runs with the object whilst other birds quite often try to ‘steal’ it. The QUB are in process of patenting an enrichment object that will stimulate this behavior, last for the duration of the crop, and break down in the litter post-depopulation.