The care and welfare of our animals is of paramount importance to ACE and our people. With a genuine connection, passion and care for the land and livestock, it remains our priority to improve and promote the highest standards of animal welfare management systems across the industry.
ACE is committed to the provision of high standards of Animal Welfare across the supply chain from procurement through our live export destination markets. By promoting a high standard of animal welfare ACE is supporting cultural change in a highly regulated industry.
Animal welfare underpins our company ethos of taking care of the cattle first, which enables people to develop and prosper, which in turn provides a sustainable commercial and ethical supply chain.
ACE places actual animal welfare outcomes above ticking boxes for compliance of the regulation. We are committed to improving animal welfare in Australia by creating a market for livestock that allows producers to invest in processes and infrastructure and in the continued development of best practice animal welfare management systems.
Our focus on animal welfare is achieved by engaging the best control and traceability systems to meet and exceed the required compliance. With initiatives such as Collective Standards for Animal Welfare, we are able to produce an animal welfare model of greater transparency, accountability, independence, consistency and integrity.
The Australian livestock industry is regulated by the Federal Government under the Export Supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS) which is an assurance system based on four principles:
- Animal welfare – animal handling and slaughter in the importing country conforms to World Organisation for Animal Health animal welfare recommendations.
- Control through the supply chain – the exporter has control of all supply chain arrangements for livestock transport, management and slaughter. All livestock remain in the supply chain.
- Traceability through the supply chain – the exporter can trace all livestock through the supply chain.
- Independent audit – the supply chain in the importing country is independently audited.