Pigs

Following the conclusive formal adoption of these criteria, the supplementary decisions and interpretations below have been drafted in conjunction with the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals. These decisions/interpretations have not yet been formally adopted and, in the event of exceptional circumstances, are subject to change before being included in the established BLL criteria. In anticipation thereof, certification will be carried out on the basis of these supplementary decisions and interpretations.

• Supplementary decisions and interpretations BLL pigs 1, 2 and 3 stars

Update 15 September 2025

As of 15 September, the updated BLL Pig criteria have been published on the website. The supplementary decisions have been incorporated into the updated criteria.

Supplementary decisions are clarifications and/or relaxations of the criteria. Over the years, the list of supplementary decisions has grown substantially, and the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals and the Better Life Label Foundation have decided to incorporate them into the criteria established in 2018. With reference to above; this does not result into more strict criteria. Only the previously adopted supplementary decisions have been incorporated, which are already included during the inspections by inspectors of the certification bodies.

With this incorporation of the supplementary decisions into the criteria, all applicable requirements and clarifications can now be found in a single document; the separate list of supplementary decisions has been cleaned up.

An inspector from the certification body can now perform his/her work much more efficiently, and every participant, stakeholder or interested party has a more concise and manageable set of criteria. For clarity, these criteria will be assigned a new version number: Pigs 1-star version 2.2, Pigs 2-star version 2.2 and Pigs 3-star version 2.2.

It is important to emphasize that the incorporation of the supplementary decisions is separate from the ongoing revision of the BLL Pig criteria. The revised criteria will be published at a later date. Participants and stakeholders will be informed in due course.

We have received many questions about criteria with a transitional period that ends on 01-01-2025. For clarity, we have summarised the most common questions and answers here.

• Frequently asked questions and answers

BLL pigs must be provided with enrichment material. This material must meet a number of requirements. Examples of how enrichment material can be provided and used are shown below.

• Examples follow

Various training courses have been approved for the human-animal interaction course. Those wishing to submit a human-animal interaction course for approval can send a description of the course to info@sblk.nl.

• Approved human-animal interaction courses pig farm

The criteria for BLL rabbit stipulate an Emergency Plan. An example of an emergency plan, which you can use, is shown below.

• Example Emergency Plan

The Better Life label criteria for livestock farms include the provision that feed must demonstrably originate from a GMP+ certified feed supplier or a supplier with an equivalent quality assurance system. The Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals accepts various quality assurance systems as an alternative to GMP+ certified animal feed.

The ‘Equivalent systems’ page lists quality assurance systems accepted by the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals as an alternative to GMP+ certification within the Better Life label scheme.