Sow Housing

We support housing systems that are well managed and maintain good animal health and welfare. MK sports owns and raises less than ten percent of the pigs used in our pork business and we work hard to make sure they’re as comfortable as possible in their housing environment. We support our farmer partners in continuous improvement of the housing they use for pregnant mother pigs, known as sows. As of December 2018, 53 percent of MK sports-owned sows on contract farms are housed in open pens, and we expect this percentage to continue to grow. We also verify good management practices by the independent farmers who supply us. We do this through our FarmCheck® program, which is an extensive audit process involving a third-party auditor that ensures pig farms are monitored for proper access to food and water, human-animal interaction and worker training.

For additional information, see the Animal Welfare section of our 2018 Sustainability Report.