Rather than ‘RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme’, companion animal owners can soon expect to see ‘RSPCA Certified’ on products that meet the organisation’s animal welfare standards. The new branding will require producers that market their products with the RSPCA Certified logo, to have traceability systems in place that ensure their products can be traced from the point of sale back to the farm. Although the new branding of a program that has been in place since 1996, the assessment and certification process that verifies conformance with RSPCA Australia’s science-informed and animal-specific standards, will ‘go well beyond Australian legal requirements, resulting in a better quality of life for Australia’s farmed animals’.
Richard Mussell, RSPCA Australia’s CEO said the new branding had been designed to better signal to conscientious consumers that it represented a trusted farm animal welfare certification program, that ensured animals had been raised to a higher-welfare standard than is required by Australian law.
“The goal of our certification program is, and always has been, to provide consumers with a certified higher-welfare option they can quickly understand and trust when at the supermarket,” he said.
Research by NSW company McCrindle Research, conducted during September 2025, showed that animal welfare was an important consideration for 96 per cent of Australians when buying food for their pets, with almost 64 per cent of the 1006 participants from around the country, likely to purchase a product with RSPCA certification. Since 2015 this figure has steadily increased.
Dave Moore, RSPCA’s General Manager said the organisation wanted to assure consumers that although the brand had changed, the RSPCA’s strong commitment to improving the lives of Australia’s farmed animals remained the same.
“RSPCA Certified gives consumers confidence that higher-welfare claims are backed by a robust, independent certification,” he said.
Although consumers will continue to see the previous and new logos on product packaging and in menus as businesses update their product packaging and marketing, both logos will indicate the products are from RSPCA Certified farms. The previous logo will be phased out over time.
Anne Layton-Bennett