RSPCA Australia's Humane Food Podcast

Brian Daly interviews animal welfare researcher, consultant, and slaughter specialist Dr Leisha Hewitt. Leisha’s passion for animal welfare started at young age and was born from the empathy for animals her mother taught her to have. When choosing a place of study as a young adult it became obvious that the options for studying animal welfare weren’t as clear cut as they are today. Having opted to study meat science, Leisha was led down the path of researching animal welfare...

Brian Daly interviews RSPCA Australia’s Scientific Officer Dr Sarah Babington and Senior Scientific Officer (Farm Animals) Melina Tensen, to find out more about farm animal transportation in Australia. Farm animals are transported within Australia every day to other properties, saleyards, feedlots, abattoirs and export ports. Some of these journeys may involve distances of thousands of kilometres over several days. Transport is stressful for farm animals and can cause suffering and deat...

Brian Daly interviews Lauren Mackenzie, Responsible Sourcing Manager for Agriculture at Coles. Lauren’s interest in agriculture started from a young age when she reared her own cattle and became involved in all aspects of their care. Including their veterinary treatments, which gave her early exposure to how antibiotics are used in animal production. Fast forward to the present day and Lauren’s role at Coles covers a host of responsible sourcing initiatives, in which animal welfare plays...

Brian Daly interviews Dr Mark Tizard, senior scientist and project leader at CSIRO. Mark started his career in the early days of gene cloning as part of the team that was first to identify and produce a candidate vaccine for malaria. After this he went on to complete a PhD and postdoctoral project in microbiology and gene technology before coming to Australia to work at CSIRO. After many advancements in the emerging field of gene editing, and fast forward to the present day, Mark’s team...

Brian Daly interviews RSPCA Australia’s Farm Animal Scientific Officer Dr Sarah Babington and Senior Policy Officer Dr Jed Goodfellow. In recent years there has been a decline in grocery sales of cage eggs, indicating that more Australian consumers are choosing cage-free eggs in the supermarket. But with overall egg consumption increasing, and eggs being used in various products, the total number of Australian hens confined to cages has not yet significantly dropped. There are inhe...

Brian Daly interviews Simon Bryant, former Executive Chef at Hilton Adelaide, and Festival Director of Tasting Australia. Simon Bryant is probably most well known in Australia from his long running ABC TV series with Maggie Beer ‘the cook and the chef’. He is passionate about the welfare of animals after growing up on a hobby farm and this has led to his work advocating for the use of ethical ingredients. As a chef putting humane food on the menu, Simon has been involved in the RSPCA’s ...

Brian Daly interviews RSPCA Australia’s Chief Science and Strategy Officer Dr Bidda Jones and Senior Policy Officer Dr Jed Goodfellow. In this episode, we delve into the RSPCA’s well-known and long-held opposition to live animal exports. For an organisation that supports farming and generally pushed to improve (rather than outright ban) poor practices – why is live export one of few exceptions? Dr Bidda Jones has been with the RSPCA for more than 20 years, and back then, the first r...

Brian Daly interviews RSPCA Australia’s Humane Food Marketing Officer, Talulah Gaunt to find out more of what is to come on season 2 of the Humane Food podcast. Some of our listeners may only know the RSPCA for the work we do to prevent cruelty to companion animals like cats and dogs. But the organisation has a long history of working to improve farm animal welfare. In fact the RSPCA in Australia was started in Victoria to improve the lives of working horses; and the national organisati...

Brian Daly interviews RSPCA Australia’s Chief Science and Strategy Officer, Dr Bidda Jones, to find out more about how farm animals are killed for food in Australia. In Australia, the killing of animals for food, fibre and other animal products (referred to as ‘slaughter’) is underpinned by minimal provisions in the Australian standard for the hygienic production and transport of meat and meat products for human consumption. The main objective of the standard is to ensure food safety, ho...