RSPCA Australia's Humane Food Podcast RSPCA Australia

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...