North America’s third largest grocery retailer, Safeway, has taken steps to improve animal welfare in its food purchasing decisions of pork and poultry. It will increase the amount of pork sourced from production systems that do not use gestation stalls by 5% per year over the next three years to a total of 15% in 2010.

The company also said it will favour the purchase of eggs from cage-free systems, stating that it will more than double the percentage of cage-free eggs it offers to over 6% of its total egg sales within two years.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) applauded Safeway’s announcement. It has been in dialogue with the retailer since last November about improving its farm animal welfare standards.