Today, we are happy to announce the end of any pet food containing rabbit meat appearing on the shelves of UK retailers!

With two own-brand products featuring rabbit meat, Morrisons was the last of the UK retailers to commit to removing the items.

Having started campaigning on this issue over eight years ago, we conducted a widespread audit of retailers in 2015. Amongst those contacted were M&S, Sainsburys and Pets at Home, all of which confirmed they didn’t use intensively farmed rabbit meat in their pet food. 

However, across the UK high street in 2015 there were 203 pet food products featuring rabbit meat (155 branded and 48 own-label), this reduced to 120 in 2016 (109 branded and 11 own-label). Finally, last month the two-remaining own-brand products from Morrisons were confirmed as being discontinued.*

FOUR PAWS UK Head of Campaigns Emily Wilson says:

“We are delighted to finally confirm a future in which no UK retailers stock pet food featuring intensively farmed rabbit meat is within our reach. There is no way to farm rabbits that can meet their welfare needs. Although rabbits have become domesticated animals, they have the behaviours of their wild counterparts, and are unable to express these behaviours within intensive keeping systems. So, this means that they suffer in unimaginable conditions during their short lives.”

Sadly, it is not against the law to intensively farm rabbits for their meat, but with demand for the products low FOUR PAWS is urging all retailers to keep their shelves clear of products featuring it. 

Emily continues:

“We will continue to monitor the market to ensure that any pet food products featuring intensively farmed rabbit meat do not return. With such little demand for the products and the discontinuation of many lines we are delighted to see the end of this cruel farming.”

A huge thank you to everybody who supported this campaign and signed our petition - your voices were heard!

If you would like to take action for another one of our farmed animal campaigns, you can find more about #MakeFoodKinder here!

*The supermarket is sourcing no further stock after September 2019 and will instead sell off the remaining items across the country.