Tyson Foods plans to process more beef from ranchers who use best practices in caring for animals and the land.
It is doing this with help from Where Food Comes From, the largest provider of certification and verification services to the food industry.
Through this partnership, Tyson said it will purchase cattle that have been verified by BeefCare, a third-party auditor that checks for best practices among farmers and ranchers. More than 200 ranches are enrolled in the program that promotes soil and animal health.
"Our goal is to work with ranchers to verify and, when possible, improve those practices so that we can be transparent with our customers and consumers about how cattle in our supply chain are raised," Steve Stouffer, group president of Tyson Fresh Meats, said in a statement Wednesday.
In 2018, Tyson said it was the first meat company to license Progressive Beef, a quality management system for cattle feeding operators that sell to companies like Tyson. Operators in the program follow best practices for animal welfare, food safety and responsible antibiotics use. Tyson said more than half of its cattle will be Progressive Beef-certified this year.