IHOP broke its animal welfare promises — Here’s what you can do

A pig confined in a gestation crate. The HSUS

Today, I’m asking for your help in urging IHOP to take action to keep its animal welfare promises.

Here at the Humane Society family of organizations, we work with many corporations to improve conditions for animals whose welfare is affected by their operations. We believe that a lot of businesses want to do better for animals, and we try to provide them with inspiration and information that helps them do so.

For many years, we have worked with IHOP’s parent company, Dine Brands, trying to move the company away from allowing its suppliers to lock pigs and chickens in tiny cages so cramped and small these poor animals can barely move.

While the company has made several promises to do exactly that, so far they haven’t followed through. In fact, those earlier promises now seem empty.

Last year, our Food Industry Scorecard graded and ranked companies based on their animal welfare performance. IHOP earned an “F.” Despite IHOP’s 2013 promise to eliminate cruel gestation crates for mother pigs in its pork supply chain by 2020 and its later promise to switch to 100% cage-free eggs, the company was providing no information, detail or insight as to how far it had come—if at all—toward those goals. Following up on what our Scorecard revealed, we asked the company to publish its percentage of gestation crate-free pork and cage-free eggs.

Well, IHOP’s parent company did just that—and the news isn’t good.

First, the company broke its promise to eliminate gestation crates by 2020; it didn’t even come close. Over 75% of pigs in IHOP’s pork supply chain still languish in crates. Instead of eliminating crates, the company has instead eliminated its promise, literally deleting it from the company’s website.

The company has also barely made any progress toward switching to cage-free eggs: Dine Brands is using just about 5% cage-free eggs at a time when other major food companies have already reached (or are well on their way toward reaching) 100%—including McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Arby’s, Starbucks, Jack in the Box, Nestle USA, General Mills, Unilever and many others.

This means the vast majority of mother pigs and egg-laying hens producing IHOP’s products continue to suffer in squalid, miserable cages and crates years after the company pledged to do away with this abuse.

Recently, we’ve attempted to work with IHOP’s leadership to correct course—and we still hold out hope that the company will follow through. That’s why today, I’m asking our members and supporters to please send a polite note to the CEO of Dine Brands urging him to keep the company’s animal welfare promises.

The animals need your voice. Thank you.