4 November 2026 · one page: levels, brands, checks, dairy and shops in Frankfurt-Bornheim

Meat, eggs and dairy in Germany: which label, which shop, what life

Pick a product to narrow the whole page. See what the animal's life looks like behind each shop's line, which label wins, where to buy in Frankfurt-Bornheim, and where the evidence runs out.

Life in photos

Pick a product and a shop line to see that animal's life, stage by stage. Each photo is tagged with whose farm it shows. "No photo found" means no sourced photo exists for that stage; it is never filled with another level, species or brand.

this brand's own farm (brand's advertising photo)this brand's supplier, filmed unannounced (source, year)typical housing for this level, not this brand's farm

1. product

2. shop line or label

What to grab

association logo>EU-Bio (5)>4>3skip21

Shopping summaries from the earlier reports

Meat, milk and eggs

The big jump is between 2 and 3, and again at 4. Levels 1 and 2 are both closed barns; 2 adds only modest space (pigs 12.5% more, broilers 35 instead of 39 kg/m²). Level 3 brings outdoor air, and for chicken also a slow-growing breed and 25 kg/m². Level 4 is the first level where the animal actually goes outside (or, for dairy, grazes).

Level 5 is simply certified organic, so the EU organic or Bio association logo on the same pack says the same thing.

For eggs, read the first digit on the shell: 0 or 1 means outdoor access, 2 means barn only.

For lamb and goat, only Bio tells you anything about housing.

Dairy and local

Milk: any HF3 or HF4 milk excludes tethering on paper. If you buy Bio, prefer a dairy that has stated no tethering: in Öko-Test 2021 that was dennree (at denn's), Upländer Bauernmolkerei, Schwarzwaldmilch and Gläserne Molkerei. Biopark bans tethering outright for every farm; Biokreis does so for farms that joined from March 2024.

Yoghurt and quark: fewer products carry a level. Bio is the safer signal; Öko-Test 2024 rated Netto BioBio and Kaufland K-Bio natural yoghurt "sehr gut".

Cheese: German cheese at Edeka is half HF3+. For imported cheese only the Bio logo means anything, and PDO cheese tells you nothing about the cows. At a counter, ask "Bio? Aus welchem Land? Tierisches oder mikrobielles Lab?"

In Frankfurt-Bornheim: the closest place with a stated sourcing chain is denn's on Berger Str. 155. The Erzeugermarkt Konstablerwache is where you can buy cheese and meat from a named farm. For the butchers and the Käseladen, ask them directly where the animals and the milk come from.

Supermarket chooser

Gauge: the best line at each chain. Dark tiles: products listed for its top lines; dashed: not listed. Black dots: independent looks at its suppliers (open for the list); a dashed ring: none found. Thick green border: an association line across meat, eggs and milk, or eggs all from rooster-rearing farms.

Names checked and dropped: Wilhelm Brandenburg (Rewe's meat company, no HF4/5 line found), Aldi "Fair & Gut", Edeka "Gutfleisch" and "Hofkost", Rewe "Respektiert" and "Bruderherz". Corrections: Spitz & Bube is Rewe, Hofglück is Edeka Südwest, #Haltungswechsel is Aldi's campaign, Nur Nur Natur is Naturland. Retailer targets: Rewe, Aldi and Penny aim for 100% of own-brand fresh meat at HF3 or higher by 2030 (Penny says HF3 and 4); Aldi Süd reports 60% of own-brand fresh meat and 100% of drinking milk at HF3 to 5.

What the big chains have said. Aldi Süd says its own-brand fresh meat has had no level 1 since the start of 2026, 100% of its own-brand drinking milk has been level 3 to 5 since February 2024, and it aims for levels 3 to 5 only for fresh meat by 2030; its BIO and Nur Nur Natur brands are level 5. Lebensmittel Praxis reported in October 2025 that Rewe and Penny were moving their own brands to at least level 2 by mid-January 2026, that Aldi Nord, Kaufland, Edeka and Netto had already done so for pork and poultry (with some beef still at level 1), and that all the large chains aim for level 3 and up on own-brand fresh meat by 2030. These are the retailers' own commitments and apply to own brands; I did not find a source listing level by individual product line.

Meat and egg lines per retailer, full table

Organic meat and milk is Haltungsform 5; organic eggs are code 0. Packs printed before July 2024 used four levels, where Bio was "4 Premium". Levels come from retailer pages, press releases and trade press; haltungsform.de has no product search.

Retailer	Brand or line	Association	Products and level
Rewe	REWE Bio	Naturland	all REWE Bio meat, almost all sausage, many dairy products (HF5)
	REWE Bio eggs, Spitz & Bube	about 60% Naturland farms, rest other associations	code 0, brother roosters reared; pilot with dual-purpose hens (Eichberghof, Naturland, Baden-Württemberg and Pfalz)
	Premium Landbauern	none	HF4, e.g. veal; service counter in some regions (plain Landbauern is HF3)
	Bioland at Rewe (since January 2026)	Bioland	fruit, vegetables, milk and dairy; no meat or eggs named
Edeka	EDEKA Bio	Bioland, Naturland, Demeter	over 100 Bioland products incl. milk; Bioland beef burgers (HF5)
	Natur Pur (EDEKA Nord)	Biopark	beef, veal, pork, lamb, chicken, HF5
	Hofglück (EDEKA Südwest)	none; Tierschutzbund Premium label	pork and poultry, about 50 regional farms; described as level 4 by Lebensmittel Praxis
Netto Marken-Discount	BioBio	Naturland, Biokreis	e.g. Biokreis pork steaks; own-brand organic eggs without chick killing (rooster rearing or in-ovo sexing)
Aldi Nord	GUT BIO	Naturland (since 2023)	started with organic milk; aldi-nord.de could not be read for more
Aldi Süd	NUR NUR NATUR	Naturland	milk, yoghurt, cheese, sausages, Landhähnchen; HF5. Farm pages for about 15 Naturland suppliers via QR traceability
	BIO	EU-Bio, some Naturland	all meat and milk HF5; own-brand eggs without chick killing since 2021
Lidl	Bioland (since 2018)	Bioland	about 100 products: milk, dairy, Bioland eggs, Bioland meat (HF5); German organic eggs with rooster rearing since 2021
Kaufland	K-Bio	Bioland, Demeter; Naturland from 2027	17 Bioland meat items (mince, goulash), over 150 Bioland items incl. milk (HF5). K-Wertschätze is only HF3
Penny	NATURGUT	EU-Bio; some items Naturland	over 750 organic products; which animal products are Naturland is not stated
Alnatura	Alnatura eggs, Alnatura Origin	mostly Bioland, Biopark, Demeter, Naturland; Origin from Brodowin (Demeter) and two Bioland farms	code 0, all with brother roosters; Origin from mobile barns. Weidemilch: pasture at least 120 days of 6 hours
denn's (biomarkt.de)	Königshofer; Hofgut Eichigt; haehnlein	Hofgut Eichigt: Bioland and Biokreis	organic meat, sausage, eggs (all with roosters reared); milk from horned cows on pasture, calves with mothers
Rossmann	enerBiO	moving to Bioland "where possible" (2020)	no meat or egg line found
dm, Netto (Stavenhagen)	no top-level meat, milk or egg line found

Dairy lines per retailer, full table

Only lines a retailer, trade press or a test names. Where a cell says "not confirmed" I looked and did not find it stated. Product-level labels marked OFF were read from Open Food Facts, a crowd-sourced database of pack photos, not from the retailer.

Retailer	Milk	Cheese	Yoghurt	Tethering or pasture statement
Rewe	REWE Bio frische Weidemilch, Naturland, HF4 (OFF). Bioland milk and dairy announced January 2026, no products named	REWE Bio; association not confirmed	REWE Bio; association not confirmed	none found
Edeka	EDEKA Bio Bioland milk (over 100 Bioland items incl. milk and yoghurts)	EDEKA Bio; association per product not confirmed; 50% of own-brand block/sliced cheese HF3+	EDEKA Bio Bioland yoghurts	dropping HF1 milk in 2022 meant "keine ganzjährige Anbindehaltung mehr" for Edeka, Edeka Bio, Gut&Günstig, BioBio, Gutes Land
Aldi Nord	GUT BIO, Naturland since 2023 (started with milk)	not confirmed	not confirmed	drinking milk HF3/4 only, "der neue Mindeststandard"
Aldi Süd	NUR NUR NATUR Bio-Vollmilch, over 90% Naturland line	NUR NUR NATUR (Naturland per earlier report)	NUR NUR NATUR (Naturland per earlier report)	own-brand drinking milk 100% HF3 to 5 since Feb 2024
Lidl	Bioland milk	Bioland mozzarella and Landkäse	Bioland natural and fruit yoghurt; Bioland quark	"Bioland-Rinder sind so oft es geht auf der Weide oder haben ganzjährigen Auslauf"
Kaufland	K-Bio frische Vollmilch, Bioland, HF4 (OFF)	K-Bio; association not confirmed	K-Bio Joghurt mild ("sehr gut" in Öko-Test 2024); association not confirmed	none found
Netto	BioBio; Naturland partnership since July 2023, dairy not named	not confirmed	BioBio Cremiger Bio Joghurt mild ("sehr gut", Öko-Test 2024)	covered by Edeka's 2022 statement
Penny	Naturgut frische Bio Weidemilch, EU-Bio, HF4 (OFF), no association	Naturgut, EU-Bio	Naturgut, EU-Bio	none found
Alnatura	Alnatura Bio-Weidemilch: whole dairy base range from about 820 farms, 120 days of 6 h, at least 1,000 m² pasture per cow	Alnatura Parmigiano Reggiano the only "gut" in Öko-Test 2019	Alnatura Weidemilch range (milk, yoghurt, crème fraîche, butter)	no tethering statement found; milk rated "sehr gut" overall in Öko-Test 2021, but Alnatura is not among the 4 brands Öko-Test names as having proved no tethering
denn's	dennree (no "denn's Bio" brand yet, Lebensmittel Zeitung, Aug 2026); part of the milk from dennree's own Hofgut Eichigt (about 1,300 cows, calves with mother or nurse cow since 2019)	dennree	dennree	dennree is one of the 4 brands that proved no tethering in Öko-Test 2021

Local in Frankfurt-Bornheim

Butchers, cheese shops, organic shops and markets in and around Bornheim, a district of Frankfurt am Main. Green border: names its farms. Dashed: does not state its sourcing. No food inspection results or press checks were found for any of these shops.

No meat, egg or milk farm shop is listed in OpenStreetMap for Seckbach or Bergen-Enkheim; MainÄppelHaus Lohrberg (Seckbach) sells only fruit from its own trees. Basic Bio on Berger Str. 40 turned up only in an old search snippet and is probably closed, so it is left out. No local shop was found that states where its eggs, lamb or goat come from. At a counter, ask: "Bio? Aus welchem Land? Tierisches oder mikrobielles Lab?"

Label ladder

Every level is a minimum, not an average. Shapes are drawn to scale against each other: the green square is floor per kilogram of chicken, the bar is space per fattening pig (hatched part outside).

insideoutsiderequired or banned as it should bepartlyno, or allowednot rated by this label

Eggs use their own scale

Squares to scale: dark is space inside per hen, green is the outdoor area per hen around it.

How many hens share one building

How many hens are actually out in the run

German laying hens by system, 2024

German pigs by level

Organic milk: who proved no tethered cows

Is the cow ever tied up?

Year-round tethering (Anbindehaltung) and seasonal tethering (Kombihaltung: tied in the barn in winter, pasture in summer). Thünen 2020: 11% of German dairy cows were tethered, 8% year-round. No German law bans either yet; Region Hannover ordered its own phase-out on 7 July 2026.

Only Haltungsform 3 and 4, Biopark, and Biokreis for newer farms rule out both forms on paper. Every other Bio label can contain milk from small farms that tie cows in winter.

Where the associations differ from each other

Biokreis (on Netto BioBio and Hofgut Eichigt at denn's) is an association too; its meat and egg rules were not compared.

Minimum vs best

Short answer: these are minimums

Every number in the earlier report (Haltungsform levels, egg codes 0 and 1, EU-Bio) is a floor, not an average and not the best. The texts say so themselves:

EU egg marketing rules, Reg. (EU) 2023/2465, Annex II is titled "Minimum requirements for systems of production", and free-range eggs must come from systems that "satisfy at least" the listed conditions (one hen per 4 m² outdoors, at most 2,500 hens per hectare, run within 150 m of a pophole, or 350 m with four shelters per hectare). Art. 11(3) lets a country set measures "going beyond the minimum requirements".
German law (§ 13a TierSchNutztV) is phrased the same way: at least 1 m² usable area per 9 hens, no more than 6,000 hens without separation.
EU-Bio (Reg. 2018/848 Annex II, Implementing Reg. 2020/464 Annex I) speaks of "the minimum surface for indoor and outdoor areas". Art. 33(5) allows private logos on products "which comply with this Regulation", so an association label sits on top of full EU compliance.
Bioland and Demeter write it into their own rules: farms must meet the EU organic regulation, and "unberührt davon sind weitergehende und ergänzende Bestimmungen" of the association.

Egg code 0 cannot tell you which kind of Bio. An egg from an EU-minimum organic farm and one from a Demeter farm both carry 0. Only the association logo on the pack tells them apart.

EU-Bio and the associations, rule by rule

From each association's own current Richtlinien (Bioland and Gäa March 2026, Naturland 05/2026, Demeter Gesamt-Richtlinie 2026, Biopark January 2022, the newest on its site). Gäa's text matches Bioland's in every value checked, so they share a column. "= EU" means the association states the same value. A dash means no rule was found in that document.

Laying hens

	EU-Bio (minimum)	Bioland / Gäa	Naturland	Demeter	Biopark
Hens per m² inside	6	6, and max 4.8 averaged over the whole house	6; 4.8 incl. winter garden in multi-tier	6	6
Covered veranda	no fixed ratio	1 m² per 12 hens	at least 1/3 of floor (1/2 in aviaries), farms over 200 hens	1 m² per 18 hens	-
Outdoor per hen	4 m²	4 m², within 150 m	4 m², within 150 m	4 m², within 150 m	4.2 m², max 300 m walk
Flock / house size	3,000 per compartment, no limit per building	3,000 per barn, 6,000 per building	3,000 per barn, 12,000 per building	3,000 per building, 150 m to the next	3,000 per compartment, 6,000 per building
Hens per farm	no head cap (170 kg nitrogen per ha)	140 per ha	140 per ha	140 per ha	140 per ha
Beak trimming	exceptionally allowed in first 3 days	banned	banned	banned	banned
Male chicks	no rule found	killing banned, one cockerel reared per hen	killing banned, one cockerel reared organically per hen	one Bruderhahn per hen, slaughtered at 14 weeks or older; in-ovo sexing banned	-
Roosters in flock	-	1 per 100 "where possible"	-	1 per 50, mandatory	1 per 100, mandatory

Broiler chicken

	EU-Bio	Bioland / Gäa	Naturland	Demeter	Biopark
Density, fixed barn	21 kg/m²	21	21	16; 21 (max 10 birds/m²) with veranda	21, 10 birds/m²
Birds per house	4,800 per compartment	4,800 per flock, 9,600 per building	4,800	3,000 per building	4,800
Minimum slaughter age (fast-growing breeds)	81 days	81	81 (slow breeds preferred)	-	81
Outdoor per bird	4 m² (2.5 mobile)	2.5 m² within 150 m plus 1.5 m² within 350 m	= EU	= EU, max 80 m from house	= EU
Birds per ha	170 kg N/ha	280	280	280	580

Pig

	EU-Bio	Bioland / Gäa	Naturland	Demeter	Biopark
Space, fattening pig	up to 110 kg: 1.3 m² in + 1.0 out; over 110 kg: 1.5 + 1.2	= EU	= EU	= EU	= EU (over 110 kg row)
Outdoor run floor	-	at least 50% solid	at least 50% solid	-	at least 50% solid, no full slats
Pigs per ha	170 kg N/ha	10 fattening pigs or 6.5 sows	-	10 or 6.5	14 or 6.5
Tail docking	not among allowed exceptions	banned	banned	banned unless a vet indicates it	banned
Castration	with anaesthesia and/or pain relief	only with anaesthesia and pain relief	surgical only with anaesthesia and pain relief	without anaesthesia banned; immunocastration banned too	with anaesthesia or pain relief
Sows	group housing except late pregnancy and suckling	no tethering; crates only for problem sows	no tethering; short fixing for problem sows	-	no tethering; fixing max 14 days at farrowing

Cattle and feed

	EU-Bio	Bioland / Gäa	Naturland	Demeter	Biopark
Tethering	allowed on farms of up to 50 animals with pasture, or outdoors twice a week	year-round tethering excluded; combined housing for small herds	not allowed; combined housing only up to 35 livestock units	-	not allowed
Pasture	whenever conditions allow	mandatory (older farms until end 2030)	mandatory in growing season	mandatory, at least 600 m² per livestock unit	at least the summer half-year
Dehorning	exceptionally, case by case	only with approval and anaesthesia	not recommended; caustic sticks banned	banned; dehorned and genetically polled animals not allowed	only if unavoidable, with pain relief
Calf with mother	-	at least 1 day	recommended for the first days	-	-
Feed from own farm or region, cattle	70%	70%	70%	70%, and 70% Demeter quality	70%
Same, pigs and poultry	30%	50%	50%	50%, 70% Demeter quality, 100% organic	50%

Where associations most clearly beat the minimum: beak trimming and tail docking banned everywhere; male chicks reared (Demeter, Bioland, Naturland, Gäa); smaller buildings for hens (Demeter 3,000, Bioland and Biopark 6,000 versus no EU cap per building); a hard cap of 140 hens or 280 broilers per hectare; Demeter's lower broiler density and its ban on dehorning. Where they match EU-Bio: indoor hen density, pig space, outdoor area per hen.

What real farms look like versus the minimum

Flock sizes. BLE egg report 2025 (Destatis data, farms with over 3,000 places, 2024): 832 free-range farms with 10.7 million hens, 619 organic farms with 6.5 million. That works out to about 12,900 hens per free-range farm and 10,500 per organic farm on average (my division, not a BLE figure). Mobile barns hold about 50 to 2,500 hens and are not counted separately. The Thünen-Institut (2018, 2017 data) put the average German laying-hen farm across all systems at 23,000 hens, 67,000 in Brandenburg.
Large Bio units are normal. Gerold Rahmann, then head of the Thünen institute for organic farming, told ZDF Frontal 21 in 2013: "Bislang sind Massenställe von bis zu 15 000 Tieren in 3000er-Einheiten üblich."
How many hens actually go outside. In a 2003 Lower Saxony study of organic flocks, on average 9.8% of a 4,500-hen flock were in the run, most within 17 m of the barn, against 40% in a 1,450-hen flock. A literature review (LMU München dissertation, 2005) cites 37.9% outside in a flock of 250, 22.7% in a flock of 1,000. I found no current national figure from FLI or Thünen.
Pigs. The pig farmers' association ISN (February 2025): levels 3 and 4 together about 2% of German pigs, organic (level 5) about 1%.
Tethered cows. Thünen-Institut (2020 census): 35% of dairy farms and 11% of cows tethered, 8% of cows year-round; organic farms are affected "in a much smaller extent", without a number in the page text. Öko-Test (2021, 20 organic milks incl. the organic lines of Aldi, Lidl, Rewe, Edeka, Kaufland, Netto, Penny): only 4 providers proved no milk came from tethered cows, only 8 proved pasture for every farm. Öko-Test (2024, 20 organic yoghurts): 11 brands had at least some suppliers who tie cows part of the year.
Organic calves. dpa (2021): of calves from about 180,000 organic dairy cows, "vielleicht 25 Prozent" stay for breeding and 75% go mostly into conventional fattening.
Health is not much better. foodwatch (2023, from veterinary studies): about 35% of organic pigs versus nearly 40% of conventional pigs had serious health findings. A Uni Leipzig study of over 300,000 organic and 250,000 conventional turkeys found "grundsätzlich die gleichen Gesundheitsprobleme" (Weser-Kurier, 2013).
How often farms are checked. BÖLW: organic farms are inspected 1.3 times a year on average (Die Zeit 2021, via top agrar). In Bavaria every organic business is checked yearly and 20% a second time by risk (Agrarbericht 2024). Control bodies are paid by the farms they check, a point a LAVES Niedersachsen official made to Die Zeit. For Initiative Tierwohl (level 2) the main audit is announced up to 48 hours ahead, plus one unannounced check a year since 2017. I found no published audit statistics for Haltungsform.de itself.

**Tethered cattle in a Bavarian barn.** General illustration of tethering, not linked to any brand or label. Photo: Michael Welling, via Thünen-Institut

Investigations and tests

What unannounced checks found

Below are cases where someone outside the brand looked at farms supplying top-level labels: undercover recordings by animal rights groups (marked activist), broadcasters, authorities, courts and product tests. Activist recordings are usually made by entering barns at night without permission; the farm's and the authorities' answers are given each time, and several dispute the findings. These are individual cases, not a sample. Where a source gives a scale it is stated. Most cases are about Bio eggs, because that is where most investigations have been done. Images are the sources' own published stills; each credit links to the original.

Eggs (code 0 and 1)

Aldi Süd Bio eggs from Dutch farms (2017 and 2024)

2017: SWR Marktcheck (13 June) and Deutsches Tierschutzbüro traced Aldi Süd Bio eggs by egg code to two Dutch farms: "etliche Kadaver und verbotene Elektroleitungen", no hen outside just before noon although access is required from 10 a.m., dead and partly decomposed hens. Aldi Süd said this did not meet KAT rules or its own binding requirements and stopped buying from both farms.
2024: ANINOVA (formerly Deutsches Tierschutzbüro) with SWR, 23 July: a Dutch Bio farm supplying Aldi Süd, about 9,000 hens in three sections of up to 3,000; hatches to the run closed in the daytime, ponies and an electric fence on the run, feather pecking. The operator told SWR a bird flu warning kept the hens in.
Scale: two farms (2017), one farm (2024)
Sources: top agrar 2017, Mannheim24 2017, ANINOVA 2024

Long tiered aviary rows full of hens — activistAldi Süd supplier, NL, 2024: tiered aviary rows inside the Bio barn. ANINOVA, aninova.org

Hens with feather loss on wire floor — activistSame farm: hens with feather loss on a wire floor. ANINOVA, aninova.org

Hen with plucked plumage — activistSame farm: hen with pecked plumage. ANINOVA, aninova.org

Brown hens on a meadow, Aldi Süd egg page — marketingFor comparison, Aldi Süd's own egg page: "Legehennen stehen beisammen auf einer Wiese." The page covers all Aldi Süd eggs, not a specific farm. Aldi Süd marketing photo, aldi-sued.de

Bio hens producing for Kaufland and Aldi, Emsland (2023)

Who: ARIWA with NDR Markt, March 2023: "drei Bio-Hennen-Betrieben in Niedersachsen, die für Kaufland und Aldi produzieren", video from two farms in Landkreis Emsland. Farms not named.
Found: bald hens, purulent cloacas, dead hens; aviaries holding 12 hens per m² of barn floor (allowed under EU-Bio for multi-tier).
Response: none on ARIWA's page. ZDF "Food Fahnder" re-examined the Kaufland footage (8 January 2024); I did not read its findings.
Note: ARIWA does not state the filming date; the image files sit in a 2022 upload folder.
Source: ariwa.org

White hen with bare neck and chest — activistKaufland/Aldi supplier: white hen with bare neck and chest in the aviary. © Animal Rights Watch e.V., ariwa.org

Pile of dead hens on the barn floor — activistSame: dead hens on the barn floor. © Animal Rights Watch e.V., ariwa.org

Aviary aisle with hens on tiers — activistSame: aviary aisle, hens on several tiers. © Animal Rights Watch e.V., ariwa.org

Landkost-Ei Bio eggs, Uckermark, sold at Kaufland (2019)

Who: ARIWA release, 22 October 2019: a Uckermark barn for up to 39,999 hens producing Bio eggs for the Landkost-Ei brand, sold among others at Kaufland.
Found: bald hens, purulent cloacas, dead hens among live ones.
Source: ARIWA release via yumda. No photos saved.

Bio farm in Lower Saxony supplying Edeka and Marktkauf (2019)

Who: Deutsches Tierschutzbüro (now ANINOVA), September 2019; the farm is named only as "niedersächsischer Bio-Betrieb".
Found: hens "übereinander gestapelt auf Gitterböden", dead hens left for days, some with maggots, injured birds untreated.
Response: Edeka and Marktkauf took the eggs out of sale (per ANINOVA). The criminal complaint was dropped by the prosecutor; an administrative offence procedure was opened.
Source: aninova.org

Almost featherless hen in Bio barn — activistEdeka/Marktkauf supplier: "Ein fast federloses Huhn in der Bio-Haltung." ANINOVA, aninova.org

Dead hens on floor and in a bucket — activistSame: dead hens on the floor and in a bucket. ANINOVA, aninova.org

Dead hen next to eggs on egg belt — activistSame: "Neben den Bio Eiern liegt ein totes Huhn." ANINOVA, aninova.org

Geflügelhof Zeeb, Reutlingen: Freiland eggs at regional Edeka and Rewe (2025)

Who: ANINOVA, July 2025; farmer Frank Zeeb, about 12,000 hens; eggs sold in some regional stores, not nationwide.
Found: sick, injured and dead hens; electric fences ANINOVA says kept hens inside.
Response: Head of the Kreisveterinäramt: "Fehlinterpretation seitens Aninova"; the electric fence was illegal but meant for a young-hen area, removal ordered; other hens always had range access; part of the flock already looked poor at the April salmonella check. Rewe: KAT audit on 15 July, hens are free-range. Edeka: its own welfare staff found free-range rules met. The farmer called the fence a mistake. Staatsanwaltschaft Tübingen opened an investigation (per ANINOVA).
Sources: Schwäbische Zeitung, farmer's reply, ANINOVA

White hens with bare reddened backs on perches — activistZeeb, Freiland supplier: white hens with bare, reddened backs on perches. Foto: Aninova e.V./obs, via Schwäbische Zeitung

Naturland and Verbund Ökohöfe farms, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (2021)

Who: ARIWA with Die Zeit, filmed June 2021, published 18 November 2021. Farms as ARIWA names them: Bio-Geflügelhof Mühlenberg (Dranse) and BioHof Wildkuhler Kuhlen 2 GmbH (Bollewick), "von Naturland und dem Verbund Ökohöfe zertifiziert". Die Zeit describes a farm with 30,000 hens.
Found: bald hens, inflamed purulent cloacas, dead hens among live ones.
Response: Naturland: the hens showed "das normale Verhalten bei Nacht", the flock was being treated for a streptococcal infection, the photos were "nicht wirklich repräsentativ". Verbund Ökohöfe inspected and found the hens "in einem guten Zustand".
Sources: ARIWA release, top agrar on Die Zeit

Brown hen with bare neck — activistMühlenberg, Dranse: brown hen with bare neck and pecked plumage. Animal Rights Watch, ARIWA Flickr album

Hens on slatted aviary floor — activistMühlenberg, Dranse: hens on a slatted aviary floor. Animal Rights Watch, ARIWA Flickr album

Dead or dying hen on litter — activistWildkuhler Kuhlen, Bollewick: dead or dying hen on the litter. Animal Rights Watch, ARIWA Flickr album

Aviary rows of hens at night — activistWildkuhler Kuhlen: aviary rows at night. Animal Rights Watch, ARIWA Flickr album

Barn exterior with outdoor range at dusk — activistWildkuhler Kuhlen: barn and outdoor range at dusk. Animal Rights Watch, ARIWA Flickr album

Deutsche Frühstücksei Bio farm, Wittstock/Dosse (2023)

Who: ARIWA with rbb Super.Markt, filmed July 2023. ARIWA says the group has "rund 16 Millionen Hühnern in 20 Betrieben".
Found: hens with bald bellies, backs and necks, purulent cloacas, dead hens.
Response: Alnatura told Utopia its eggs have no connection to the farm. Brandenburg's animal welfare officer (rbb): an organic seal is no guarantee of welfare.
Sources: ARIWA release, Utopia

Hens with bare red backs on aviary perch — activistWittstock: hens with bare, red backs on a perch. Animal Rights Watch, ARIWA Flickr album

Two tiers of hens with bare patches — activistWittstock: two tiers of hens, many with bare patches. Animal Rights Watch, ARIWA Flickr album

Official findings and court cases on Bio and Freiland eggs

Oldenburg, 2011 to 2013: Staatsanwaltschaft Oldenburg: barns held "1 bis 50 Prozent mehr Hühner ... als erlaubt", across all housing types incl. Bio and Freiland. About 150 Lower Saxony producers, "fast jeder fünfte Eierproduzent des Landes", plus about 50 in other states; the ministry said mostly conventional, some organic; investigations also against Naturland farms. 7 penalty orders issued by April 2013. (taz, taz, LZ)
Meckl.-Vorpommern, 2013: State authority LALLF: "vier Stalleinheiten mit insgesamt 12.000 Bio-Legehennenplätzen in drei Unternehmen" lacked the 4 m² range per hen; immediate ban on selling their eggs as organic; four prosecutions opened. The ministry made 16 unannounced checks after a tip. (Landtag Drucksache 6/2052)
Wiesengold, 2012: ARD FAKT and PETA footage at Bio-Geflügelhof Tiemann (Wiesengold Landei, Twistringen, then Germany's largest organic egg marketer, Naturland): hens almost without feathers, red mites, run unreachable for most hens. Naturland terminated the farm and had a different control body check "sämtliche rund 30 Betriebe" linked to the owner. (taz, Frontal 21)
Fürstenhof, 2012/2018: ARIWA footage of Fürstenhof barns (Biopark-labelled eggs) broadcast by MDR; the company sued. The Bundesgerichtshof ruled for MDR on 10 April 2018 (VI ZR 396/16): public interest in mass production of organic food outweighed the trespass. (LTO)
Biopark, 2016: taz reporters found the ranges of Biopark farms (Fürstenhof, Petznick, Mittenwalde) "überwiegend frei von Pflanzen", with "mitunter 30.000 Hühner in einem Gebäude". Biopark imposed no sanctions. A Green MP named Rewe, Edeka, Alnatura and denn's as buyers. (taz)
Bioland, 2017: ARIWA filmed three Bioland farms, including "Legehennen mit komplett nackten Hinterteilen" (farms not named). Bioland asked for the names. (biohandel) activist no photos saved.

Tests that looked at egg farms

Warentest 2013: Regional eggs with farm visits: four farms refused a visit; at Dachauer Land the inspector saw hens "nur im Stall und nicht im Freiland". Bioland eggs from Feneberg and Gut Schmerwitz credited with welfare beyond the law. (test.de)
Öko-Test 2024: 20 egg packs by questionnaire, no farm visits stated. Aldi's "Landfreude" free-range eggs "mangelhaft", because the supplier could not document the chain; Netto "Vom Land" free-range "ausreichend"; five Bio eggs "sehr gut", including Alnatura Bioland and K-Bio Bioland (Kaufland). (Utopia)

Chicken and turkey

Warentest 2021: Chicken legs incl. Bio: "In Deutschland besuchten wir 15 Mastbetriebe vor Ort". Bio providers Freiland Puten and Biofino rated best; Aldi Süd, Kaufland and Rewe sell Bio legs but "engagieren sich aber nur befriedigend", while their suppliers Biofino and Hubers Landhendl "haben die Mast gut im Griff". In three farms almost every third chicken had footpad lesions (farms not named). (test.de)
Bio turkeys, 2013: activist ARIWA in four barns in Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Weser-Kurier names farms in Sulingen-Barrien and Twistringen-Mörsen; no brand or association named): birds on "einer zentimeterdicken Schicht aus Kot und Stroh", injuries, dead birds in bins, unusually high mortality in documents. (t-online gallery)
Bioland feed fraud, 2009: NRW authority LANUV: Bioland poultry farm Franzsander (Delbrück) bought "mindestens 3.000 Tonnen" of conventional feed over three years. Organic status withdrawn, Bioland expelled him, prosecutors investigated. (taz)

Bio turkeys on deep litter — activistBio turkeys, 2013: birds on deep faeces-and-straw litter. No brand named. Quelle: ARIWA, via t-online

Turkey with bare patches — activistSame: turkey with bare patches and torn plumage. Quelle: ARIWA, via t-online

Dead turkeys in a bin — activistSame: dead turkeys in a large bin. Quelle: ARIWA, via t-online

Pigs and cattle

21 pig farms at Haltungsform 3 and 4 supplying Rewe and Edeka (2025)

Who: ARIWA, with Spiegel and ZDF Frontal, May 2025: 21 pig farms in six states, Haltungsform 3 and 4 and other welfare labels, filmed over more than six months, described as supplying Rewe and Edeka. No specific retailer brand line named; the articles do not say which photo is from which level.
Found: injured untreated pigs lying on the floor, driving with blows, filthy pens, pigs standing in excrement, little or no straw, decomposing carcasses.
Scale: 21 farms filmed, criminal complaints against 12.
Response: Staatsanwaltschaft Oldenburg opened proceedings for the Osnabrück cases. Landkreis Osnabrück's unannounced April checks found "keine größeren Auffälligkeiten". No retailer statement found.
Sulingen: One of the farms, advertised as "Tierwohl-Haltungsstufe 4+" (Landkreis Diepholz), was already filmed by Spiegel TV and ARIWA in 2023 (carcass in a manure-covered pen, abscesses, slurry through the slats). The farmer denied it; prosecutors dropped the 2023 case and an expert found no violation in the video. The vet office in 2025 said the farm is closely monitored and showed no major problems weeks before.
Sources: leinetal24, ZDF Frontal, top agrar 2023, leinetal24 on Sulingen

Half-decomposed pig in a barn — activistHF3/4 farm, 2025: "Ein halb verwestes Schwein in einem der Ställe" (file text at source). Farm and level not stated. © Animal Rights Watch, via leinetal24

Staff handling pigs — activistHF3/4 farm, 2025: "Tierqual im Stall bei der Behandlung durch Mitarbeiter" (file text at source). © Animal Rights Watch, via leinetal24

Pig on manure-covered floor — activistHF3/4 farm, 2025: "Die Tiere stehen in den eigenen Exkrementen." © Animal Rights Watch, via leinetal24

Pig legs in deep manure — activistSulingen, "4+", 2025: "Ein Foto, das aus dem Sulinger Stall stammen soll: Die Schweine stehen tief in Gülle." Disputed by the farmer. © Animal Rights Watch, via leinetal24

Bioland pigs, 2019: activist ARIWA film at the Bioland farm Eichenhof, Lückau (Wendland; 300 sows, 2,500 fattening pigs): staff striking pigs with tools, one with a hammer, piglets carried by ears and tails, sows in farrowing crates. Bioland's surprise inspection and the vet office found no violation; the farmer's son called the hammer blow "absolutely unacceptable". (taz) No photos saved.
Edeka Bio pork, 2015: Staatsanwaltschaft Schwerin investigated a farmer in Ludwigslust-Parchim suspected of selling conventional pigs as organic, delivered via a processor to Edeka. (LZ)
Warentest 2020: Pork neck steaks, 15 products incl. 4 organic: only the two organic providers rated good on animal welfare; eight retail chains, from Aldi to Rewe, asked suppliers for hardly more than the law requires; Edeka gave no supplier information. (test.de)
Organic dairy, 2021: Nagold: a slaughterhouse vet flagged emaciated cows from an organic dairy farm; the inspection found many malnourished, sick cows. The court ordered a EUR 2,450 payment. (top agrar)
EU audit, 2022: The EU Commission found Germany may allow too many exceptions to the organic grazing duty. (top agrar)

Brands with no independent material found

No undercover recording, official finding or farm-visit test was found for farms behind: Demeter, Gäa, Lidl (Bioland line), Penny (Naturgut), Netto (BioBio), Aldi Nord (Gut Bio, apart from the joint "Aldi" mention in the 2023 Emsland case), Alnatura and denn's (both appear only as buyers who replied to reports), Rewe Premium Landbauern, Edeka Natur Pur and Hofglück, any Haltungsform 4 chicken or turkey line, any Bio or HF4/5 duck, and any sheep or goat farm. That means nothing was found, not that these farms were checked and found fine.

Dairy: tests and investigations

Öko-Test, organic milk, February 2021

Scope: 20 organic whole milks, questionnaires to about 250 farms, sampled Aug to Sep 2020. Included organic lines of Aldi, Lidl, Rewe, Edeka, Kaufland, Netto and Penny.
Found: Only 4 providers proved that no milk came from tethered cows: Upländer Bauernmolkerei, Schwarzwaldmilch, Gläserne Molkerei and dennree. Only 8 proved pasture for every farm in the batch. "Einige Bio-Kühe stehen in ihrem ganzen Leben nicht ein einziges Mal auf einer Weide."
Ratings: Alnatura and dennree "sehr gut" overall. Weihenstephan refused to answer on animal welfare. The discounter lines rated only "befriedigend" on welfare transparency.
Source: oekotest.de

Öko-Test, organic natural yoghurt, July 2024

Scope: 20 organic natural yoghurts.
Found: "In elf Anbietern kommt die Milch sogar teilweise aus Bio-Betrieben, die Anbindehaltung praktizieren", meaning Kombihaltung on small farms. Pasture for all cows was confirmed for only about half the products.
Ratings: Only two "sehr gut": Netto BioBio Cremiger Bio Joghurt mild and Kaufland K-Bio Joghurt mild.
Source: Öko-Test press release

Öko-Test, Parmesan, September 2019

Found: Of about 70 dairy farms behind the tested Parmigiano and Grana, only one let its cows onto pasture. Six producers gave no or vague answers.
Ratings: Alnatura Parmigiano Reggiano was the only "gut"; Aldi Süd Cucina "befriedigend"; Giovanni Ferrari "ungenügend".
Source: t-online on Öko-Test

Other cases

Öko-Test 2018: Quark: the four "gut" products were all organic (Alnatura, Andechser, dennree, Söbbeke). (Utopia)
Warentest 2023: 28 fresh whole milks; five of the six best were organic. Tested taste and fatty acids, not farms. (test.de)
Nagold 2021: A slaughterhouse vet flagged emaciated cows from an organic dairy farm; the inspection found many malnourished, sick cows; the court ordered a EUR 2,450 payment. (in the brands report)
EU audit 2022: The Commission found Germany may allow too many exceptions to the organic grazing duty. (brands report)
Calves: dpa 2021: about 75% of calves from organic dairy cows go mostly into conventional fattening. (brands report)

I found no undercover recording or official finding at a farm supplying a named supermarket Bio or HF4 dairy line. That means nothing was found, not that the farms were checked and found fine.

Details per species

How to read the Haltungsform label

Label tabs as published on haltungsform.de (Initiative Tierwohl GmbH, Bonn).

Haltungsform is not a farm standard of its own. It is a retailer scheme run by the Initiative Tierwohl GmbH that sorts existing programmes (QS, Initiative Tierwohl, Neuland, Tierschutzbund, Bio associations and others) into five levels: 1 Stall, 2 Stall+Platz, 3 Frischluftstall, 4 Auslauf/Weide, 5 Bio. Roughly: 1 is the legal minimum, 2 is a bit more space and enrichment (Initiative Tierwohl level), 3 means contact with outdoor air but not necessarily going outside, 4 means the animals can go outdoors, 5 means certified organic. The five-level version replaced the older four levels (Stallhaltung, StallhaltungPlus, Außenklima, Premium) from summer 2024, and old packaging was used up gradually, so both versions can still turn up. It covers pig, chicken, turkey, Peking duck, rabbit, beef cattle (young bulls, oxen, heifers, veal calves) and dairy cows. It does not cover shell eggs, lamb or goat. For pigs it rates only the fattening phase, not the sows and piglets.

The state label (Tierhaltungskennzeichnung, law of 2023) uses the same five names and, as drawn by the BZL, looks like a black and white box with the levels stacked and a QR code. It is for fresh German pork only. The Bundestag pushed the mandatory start to 1 January 2027 (decided 15 January 2026), and on 16 October 2026 agrarheute reported that the CDU/CSU and SPD coalition had agreed to postpone it again, to 1 October 2027. That was a coalition agreement, not yet a passed law, when it was reported.

State Tierhaltung label with Bio marked — **The state label**, shown here with the Bio level filled in. Same five level names as Haltungsform. Graphic via landwirtschaft.de (BZL/BLE), © BLE

Chicken (Masthähnchen), with turkey

Minimum requirements per level, from the Haltungsform criteria tables (PDF, file dated 24 Feb 2025). kg/m² means kilograms of live bird per square metre of barn floor.

Level	Space	Outdoors	Enrichment	Breed and feed
1 Stall	max 39 kg/m²	none, closed barn	dry litter for pecking, scratching, dust bathing	robust lines (any growth rate); QS-approved feed; QS programme
2 Stall+Platz	max 35 kg/m²	none, closed barn	plus material such as straw or pecking stones, at least 1 object per started 150 m²	as level 1; Initiative Tierwohl or equivalent
3 Frischluftstall	max 25 kg/m², or 29 kg/m² with a Kaltscharraum (covered outdoor-climate area)	permanent access to an outdoor-climate area (Wintergarten), not to open land	at least 2 objects per started 150 m², or per 2,000 birds 3 straw or hay bales plus 1 pecking object per 1,000	slow-growing breed, max 45 g weight gain per day (51 g/day with gait-score checks); GMO-free feed
4 Auslauf/Weide	max 21 kg/m²	access to open land for at least 1/3 of life; area mostly vegetated, with shelter structures	extra litter (straw, wood shavings, sand or peat) on at least 1/3 of the floor	slow-growing, max 45 g/day; GMO-free; at least 20% of feed from own farm or region
5 Bio	max 21 kg/m²	open land whenever weather allows, at least 1/3 of life; at least 4 m² per bird (fixed barn) or 2.5 m² (mobile barn)	litter on at least 1/3 of the floor	slow-growing (max 45 g/day) or fast-growing if slaughtered at 81 days or older; organic, GMO-free feed, at least 30% from own farm or region; EU organic certified

For scale: a 2 kg broiler at 39 kg/m² is about 19 to 20 birds per square metre; at 21 kg/m² it is about 10 to 11. These two figures are my arithmetic from the kg limits, not numbers from the criteria table.

Broilers in a large closed barn on litter — **Closed barn, litter floor**: the housing type of levels 1 and 2. The photo does not say which level this farm is in. Caption at source: "Masthähnchen werden überwiegend in Bodenhaltung gemästet." Photo: landpixel.de, via landwirtschaft.de

Level 3 (Wintergarten / Außenklimabereich) for broilers: I did not find a photo from an official or openly licensed source that clearly shows a broiler barn with a covered outdoor-climate area, so this cell is empty.

White broilers on grass in front of a mobile barn — **Broilers outside a mobile barn**: outdoor access on grass, the housing type of levels 4 and 5. Photo: Anne Körkel, via landwirtschaft.de, "Hühnerhaltung im Mobilstall"

Mobile barns for organic broilers on a meadow — **Organic (level 5)**: mobile barns for organic broilers on pasture. Photo: Annette Alpers, via oekolandbau.de (BLE), "Bio-Hähnchenmast"

Broilers in an outdoor run under young trees — **Organic (level 5)**: broilers in an outdoor run under young trees, which give cover from birds of prey. Photo: Thomas Stephan, BLE, via oekolandbau.de

Turkey (Pute), for comparison

Level	Space	Outdoors	Breed
1	max 58 kg/m² toms, 52 kg/m² hens	none	robust lines
2	max 53 / 48 kg/m² (at least 10% more space)	none	robust lines
3	max 41 / 37 kg/m² (at least 30% more)	permanent access to an outdoor-climate area	slow-growing, max 110 g/day, or fast-growing slaughtered at 140 days or older (toms) / 100 days (hens)
4	max 21 kg/m² (at least 60% more)	open land for at least 1/3 of life	same rule as level 3
5	max 21 kg/m², max 2,500 turkeys per barn	open land at least 1/3 of life when weather allows, at least 10 m² per bird	same rule as level 3

No turkey photos: I found none from the sources I was using that show a specific level.

Pig (Mastschwein)

Space is usable floor per animal by weight class. Level 1 matches the legal minimum. Haltungsform rates only the fattening phase: its FAQ says piglet castration and tail docking are not criteria.

Level	Space per pig	Outdoors	Enrichment	Feed and other
1 Stall	30 to 50 kg: 0.5 m² 50 to 110 kg: 0.75 m² over 110 kg: 1.0 m²	none, closed barn	organic, high-fibre material to root in	QS-approved feed; QS programme
2 Stall+Platz	0.563 / 0.844 / 1.125 m² (12.5% more)	none	pen divided by at least 3 structural elements; plus roughage	QS feed; Initiative Tierwohl or equivalent
3 Frischluftstall	open-front barn: 30 to 50 kg 0.7 m², 50 to 120 kg 1.3 m², over 120 kg 1.5 m² barn with run: 0.7 / 1.1 / 1.4 m²	outdoor climate: an open-front barn, or a barn with permanent access to a run	plus straw (as bedding or roughage) or similar	GMO-free or regional feed for the whole fattening period
4 Auslauf/Weide	30 to 50 kg 0.75 m² (0.25 m² of it outside) 50 to 120 kg 1.5 m² (0.5 m² outside) over 120 kg 2.3 m² (0.8 m² outside)	permanent access to a run, or kept outdoors (Freiland)	straw or similar	GMO-free; at least 20% feed from own farm or region
5 Bio	up to 110 kg: 1.3 m² inside plus 1 m² run over 110 kg: 1.5 m² inside plus 1.2 m² run	permanent access to a run, or outdoors	straw or similar; rooting material in the run	organic, GMO-free feed, at least 30% from own farm or region

Fattening pigs on a slatted floor — **Fully slatted floor, closed barn**: typical of level 1. Pigs in Germany are mostly kept on slatted floors (BZL). Alt text at source: "Mastschweine in einem Stall mit Spaltenboden". Photo: landpixel.de (file name), via landwirtschaft.de

Pig pen with part slatted, part solid floor — **Partly slatted pen**, solid floor in part of the pen. A closed barn, so the housing type of levels 1 and 2; the level of this farm is not stated. Photo: ahavelaar/iStock via Getty Images, via landwirtschaft.de

Pig barn with outdoor area on straw — **Barn with an outdoor area on straw**: outdoor climate plus a run, which fits level 3 (barn with run) or level 4 if the run is permanent and big enough. The photo alone cannot tell which. Alt text: "Schweine in einem Außenstallbereich auf Stroh". Photo: Wilfried Henke (file name), via landwirtschaft.de

Pigs in a straw-bedded outdoor run — **Straw-bedded outdoor run**, the kind of permanent run level 4 requires. Alt text: "Schweine in einem mit Stroh eingestreuten Auslauf." Photo: Countrypixel / stock.adobe.com, via landwirtschaft.de

Pigs on a field outdoors — **Pigs kept outdoors on a field** (Freiland): allowed in levels 4 and 5. BZL notes this is rare in Germany. Photo: Thomas Stephan, BLE, via landwirtschaft.de

Organic pig barn with covered straw runs — **Organic (level 5)**: barn with straw-bedded, roofed runs, described at source as a core part of converting to organic pig farming. Photo: Dominic Menzler, BLE, via oekolandbau.de

Cattle (beef and dairy)

Beef cattle (Jungbullen, Ochsen, Färsen, Mastkälber)

Conditions must apply for at least the last 6 months before slaughter.

Level	Space per animal (loose housing)	Housing and outdoors	Dehorning	Feed
1 Stall	to 150 kg 1.5 m², to 220 kg 1.7 m², to 400 kg 1.8 m², over 400 kg 2.2 m²	barn, preferably loose; tethering allowed	under 6 weeks, by farmer, with pain relief	QS-approved
2 Stall+Platz	1.5 / 1.8 / 2.5 / 3 m²	loose housing; oxen and heifers may be in combined housing with grazing (at least 120 days, 2 h) or an exercise area of 4.5 m²; no tethering for bulls	as level 1	QS-approved
3 Frischluftstall	1.5 / 2 / 3 / 4 m²	loose housing with year-round yard (at least 3 m² each), or grazing at least 120 days of 6 h, or open-front barn; no tethering	as level 1	GMO-free, at least the last 6 months
4 Auslauf/Weide	to 100 kg 1.5 m², to 200 kg 2.5 m², to 400 kg 4 m², over 400 kg 5 m² (min 1 m² per 100 kg)	permanent access to a yard (at least 3 m²) or pasture; no tethering	only in exceptional cases, by vet under anaesthesia	GMO-free; at least 60% from own farm or region; at least 60% of dry matter as roughage
5 Bio	to 100 kg 1.5 m², to 200 kg 2.5 m², to 350 kg 4 m², over 350 kg 5 m² (min 1 m² per 100 kg)	loose housing with yard or pasture; no tethering (EU organic law allows seasonal tethering in some cases)	only in exceptional cases	organic, GMO-free; at least 70% from own farm or region; at least 60% roughage

Dairy cows (this is the level printed on milk)

Level	Space	Housing and outdoors	Other
1 Stall	cubicle barn: one cubicle per cow	barn; "preferably" loose or combined housing, so tethering is still possible	QS feed
2 Stall+Platz	one cubicle per cow, or 4 m² per cow without cubicles	loose housing, or combined housing with grazing (at least 120 days, 2 h) or an exercise area	scratching brush
3 Frischluftstall	or 5 m² per cow without cubicles	loose housing with year-round yard (3 m² each), or open-front barn, or grazing at least 120 days of 6 h; no tethering	GMO-free feed
4 Auslauf/Weide	or 6 m², or 1,000 m² of pasture per cow	loose housing with yard and grazing at least 120 days of 6 h; no tethering	GMO-free; 60% feed from own farm or region; 60% roughage
5 Bio	or 6 m²	loose housing and grazing whenever conditions allow; no tethering (seasonal tethering allowed by EU organic law in some cases)	organic, GMO-free; 70% own farm or region; 60% roughage

Cattle tethered with chains in a tie stall — **Tie stall (Anbindehaltung)**: only possible at level 1 (and seasonal combined housing at level 2). Excluded from level 3 up. Photo: landpixel.de, via landwirtschaft.de, "Anbindehaltung von Rindern"

Fattening bulls in a pen with slatted floor — **Fattening bulls in a single-room loose barn** with partly rubber-coated slatted floor: an indoor-only barn, the housing type of levels 1 and 2. Photo: Andreas Pelzer, via landwirtschaft.de

Cubicle barn for dairy cows — **Cubicle loose barn for dairy cows** (Boxenlaufstall), slatted walkways, bedded cubicles. Without a yard or grazing this is levels 1 to 2. Photo: Albert Brunsting/iStock via Getty Images, via landwirtschaft.de

Loose housing barn for dairy cows — **Loose barn (Laufstall)** where cows move freely; the open side walls give outdoor air, but whether it counts as an open-front barn for level 3 is not stated. Photo: Cordula Möbius, via landwirtschaft.de

Dairy cows grazing on pasture — **Dairy cows on pasture**: grazing is what separates level 4 (and 5) from the barn levels for milk. Photo: Thomas Stephan, BLE (file name), via landwirtschaft.de

Also covered by Haltungsform but left out here: Peking duck (max 20 kg/m² at levels 1 to 4, or 25 kg/m² at level 3 with permanent outdoor access; open water for swimming from level 4) and rabbit. Both are in the same criteria PDF.

Eggs: the printed code, not Haltungsform

Haltungsform does not cover shell eggs (they are not in its list of species). Eggs carry the EU producer code stamped on the shell: first digit = housing, then country, then farm number, for example 0-DE-1344461. Germany banned the last cages (Kleingruppenhaltung) from 1 January 2026; § 45 of the Tierschutz-Nutztierhaltungsverordnung lets authorities extend this to 31 December 2028 in hardship cases. The KAT association lets you trace the code online, but only for KAT member farms.

Code	System	Space inside	Outdoors	Other
0	Bio (Ökohaltung)	max 6 hens per m² usable area (about 0.17 m² each)	at least 4 m² per hen	max 3,000 hens per compartment; at least 18 cm perch per hen; organic feed
1	Freiland	as Bodenhaltung (about 0.11 m² each)	at least 4 m² per hen
2	Bodenhaltung (barn)	max 9 hens per m² usable area; in multi-tier aviaries max 18 hens per m² of barn floor	none	max 6,000 hens without separation; litter on at least 1/3 of floor, min 250 cm² per hen
3	Käfig / Kleingruppe	about 0.08 m² per hen	none	banned in Germany since 1 Jan 2026 (hardship extensions possible to end 2028)

Share of German laying hens in 2024 (BZL / Destatis): Bodenhaltung 57.7%, Freiland 23.6%, Öko 14.3%, Kleingruppe 4.3%. Eggs in pasta, cakes and other processed food, and cooked or dyed eggs, need no housing statement; the Verbraucherzentrale notes such eggs can still come from imported cage systems.

Egg stamped 0-DE-1344461 — **Egg stamp** 0-DE-1344461: organic, Germany, farm number. Photo: User:BMK, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

White hens standing on straw inside a barn — **Hens on litter inside a barn**: what Bodenhaltung (code 2) looks like inside; the source does not say which code this flock is. Alt text: "Viele weiße Hühner stehen in einem Stall auf Stroh", via landwirtschaft.de (photographer not named)

Laying hens outside a large barn — **Free-range hens** (Freilandhaltung, code 1) outside a large fixed barn. Alt text: "Legehennen in Freilandhaltung". Photo: landpixel (file name), via landwirtschaft.de

Brown hens on perches in a mobile barn — **Inside a mobile hen house**, hens on the upper perches. Mobile houses are used for free-range and organic flocks. Photo: BLE, via landwirtschaft.de

Hens on a meadow — **Outdoor run of a mobile hen house**, grass and herbs; the front part already worn down by the hens. Photo: BLE, via landwirtschaft.de

BZL infographic: space per laying hen — **Space per hen**: 0.08 / 0.11 / 0.11 / 0.17 m² inside, plus 4 m² outside for Freiland and Öko. (The pie chart in it is older than the 2024 shares above.) Infographic: BZL, reuse allowed with credit to BZL

BZL infographic: how laying hens are kept, 2015 to 2024 — **How German hens are kept**, 2015, 2020, 2024. Infographic: BZL, © 2025 BLE, reuse allowed with credit

Lamb and goat

Neither Haltungsform nor the state label covers sheep or goats. Haltungsform's FAQ says it started with "the most market-relevant species" and is working on others; the state label so far applies only to fresh German pork. So there is no level 1 to 5 for lamb or goat, and none should be read into the packaging.

What you can rely on is the organic label (EU organic leaf, or Bioland, Naturland, Demeter). EU organic rules require access to pasture whenever conditions allow, and set minimum space:

EU organic minimum	Inside, per head	Outside, per head
Sheep or goat	1.5 m²	2.5 m²
Lamb or kid	0.35 m²	0.5 m²

Without an organic label, nothing on a lamb or goat pack tells you how the animal was kept.

Shepherd with dogs and flock — **Shepherding**: shepherd Knut Kucznik with his dogs and flock. Photo: Cordula Möbius, via landwirtschaft.de

Sheep grazing — **Sheep on pasture**. Photo: Cordula Möbius (file name), via landwirtschaft.de

Goat herd on pasture — **Goats on pasture**, on an organic goat farming page. Photo: Dominic Menzler, via oekolandbau.de

Dairy: which products carry a Haltungsform level

Milk got Haltungsform in January 2022, alongside meat. The retailers in Initiative Tierwohl agreed that "Milch und Milchprodukte wie Käse und Joghurt" could carry the label. Drinking milk came first, and other dairy has followed product by product, so far mostly for German milk. The dairy-cow criteria per level are in the first report and are not repeated here. In short: 1 allows year-round tethering, 2 allows seasonal tethering (Kombihaltung) with grazing or an exercise area, 3 is the first level without tethering, 4 adds grazing for at least 120 days of 6 hours, and 5 is Bio.

Product	Carries a level today?	What the retailers have said
Drinking milk	yes, at all the big chains	Aldi Nord and Süd: own-brand drinking milk only HF3 to 5 since spring 2024 (Aldi Süd: since February 2024). Lidl and Edeka: 100% of own-brand drinking milk HF3 or higher (top agrar, 25 Jul 2025). Rewe: about 90% of its fresh milk HF3. Kaufland 2023: over 60% of own-brand fresh milk and over 40% of UHT milk at HF3/4.
Yoghurt, quark, cream	partly	Lidl: quark, fresh cream, Schmand, körniger Frischkäse and Skyr Pur to HF3+ by end of 2025, "ausschließlich Produkte aus deutscher Landwirtschaft" (Lebensmittel Praxis, 17 Jul 2025). Edeka: all natural quark HF3+ from early 2026; yoghurt, mozzarella, mascarpone and cream to follow.
Cheese	some German cheese only	Edeka: 50% of own-brand sliced, grated and block cheese on HF3+ milk (Jul 2025). Lidl: "Ausgenommen bleiben zunächst Butter und Käse" (Jul 2025). I found no retailer statement that Aldi, Rewe or Kaufland print a level on cheese today.
Imported cheese	usually no	Parmigiano, Gouda, Comté, feta and the like are made from foreign milk; the retailers' HF switches above are stated for German milk. On imported cheese, only the Bio logo tells you anything about how the cows were kept.

"Weidemilch" on its own is not a legal term (Verbraucherzentrale NRW: "weder definiert noch geschützt"). The Pro Weideland label behind much Weidemilch requires 120 days of 6 hours on pasture, 2,000 m² of grassland per cow (at least 1,000 m² as pasture) and no tethering; the Verbraucherzentrale says such farms usually land at HF3 or 4. Stiftung Warentest (Feb 2023, 28 milks) found that Weidemilch without a Bio seal had "kaum mehr günstige Fettsäuren als konventionelle Milch", while Bio and Heumilch had the most.

Dairy: what each label allows on tethering

Two things are called tethering. Anbindehaltung means the cow is chained or strapped by the neck in a stall all year. Kombihaltung (Kombinationshaltung) means tied in the barn in winter, with pasture in summer and some outdoor access in winter. Thünen-Institut (2020 census): 11% of German dairy cows were tethered, 8% year-round. No German law bans either yet. Region Hannover issued its own order on 7 July 2026 banning year-round tethering within 18 months and seasonal forms within 3 to 7 years, citing § 2 Tierschutzgesetz. That order applies only to Region Hannover.

So the only labels that rule out both forms on paper are Haltungsform 3 and 4 (conventional), Biopark, and Biokreis for newer farms. Every other Bio label, including Bioland, Naturland and Demeter, can contain milk from small farms that tie cows in winter. That is what the Öko-Test cases below keep finding.

The tethering picture per label is in the label ladder.

Full wording per label

Label	Year-round tethering	Seasonal tethering (Kombihaltung)	Pasture
Haltungsform 1	allowed	allowed	not required
Haltungsform 2	no	allowed, with grazing (120 days, 2 h) or an exercise area	not required
Haltungsform 3	no	no	one of: year-round yard, open-front barn, or grazing 120 days of 6 h
Haltungsform 4	no	no	yard and grazing 120 days of 6 h
EU-Bio (= HF5 minimum)	no; individual animals only, temporarily	allowed on farms of up to 50 animals: pasture in the grazing season, outdoor access at least twice a week otherwise	whenever conditions allow
Bioland	"ausgeschlossen"	small herds only, with approval of the control body; no new tie-stall barns; rigid neck frames, tight chains and cow trainers banned	mandatory; farms existing on 1 Dec 2018 may use a year-round yard instead until 31 Dec 2030
Gäa	"ausgeschlossen"	existing small herds only, with approval; same wording as Bioland	as Bioland
Naturland	"nicht zulässig"	only in small herds, max 35 livestock units (annual average) in Öko-Kombinationshaltung; pasture in season, outdoors at least twice a week otherwise; cow trainers banned	Laufstall "möglichst mit Weidegang"; pasture in season for Kombihaltung
Demeter	no explicit clause found in the 2026 rules	still practised: Demeter's own animal-welfare inspection guide names farms "in denen noch Kombihaltung (Anbindehaltung im Winter + Sommerweidehaltung) praktiziert wird" and wants their unannounced check in winter	mandatory in the growing season, at least 600 m² per livestock unit (yard-only farms existing at end of 2021 may get until 2030)
Biokreis	"ausgeschlossen"	allowed only on small member farms that joined before 1 March 2024, with approval; banned for newer members	in the growing season
Biopark	"nicht gestattet"	"Die Anbindehaltung von Wiederkäuern ist nicht gestattet" (no exception for small farms found)	at least the summer half-year

Cheese: what the label cannot tell you

Imported cheese. No German level, and no Haltungsform switch was announced for foreign milk. A Bio logo is the only housing information on Gouda, Parmigiano or feta. Bio farms abroad follow EU-Bio, which allows Kombihaltung on farms of up to 50 animals.

Rennet. Cheese may be sold without listing the rennet type, so you cannot tell animal rennet from microbial rennet on most packs (Öko-Test). Bio shops usually state it.

PDO cheese. Parmigiano Reggiano's production rules require "l'uso esclusivo di caglio di vitello", so it is never vegetarian (disciplinare). A PDO seal protects origin and recipe and says nothing about tethering or pasture, as the 2019 Öko-Test showed.

Pitfalls

Code 0 or "Bio" alone is the EU minimum. An egg from an EU-minimum organic farm and one from a Demeter farm both carry 0. Only the association logo on the pack tells them apart.
Flock size matters more than the label suggests. EU-Bio caps a compartment at 3,000 hens but not the building; Bio units of 15,000 in 3,000-hen sections were "üblich" (Thünen, 2013). The average organic egg farm with over 3,000 places has about 10,500 hens. In a 2003 Lower Saxony organic study, 9.8% of a 4,500-hen flock were out in the run against 40% of a 1,450-hen flock (hen rows in the ladder). Most of the 9.8% stayed within 17 m of the barn. No current national figure was found.
Processed food with eggs says nothing. Pasta, cakes, cooked or dyed eggs need no housing statement and can come from imported cage systems.
Old packs use the old 4-level label. Before summer 2024 the levels were Stallhaltung, StallhaltungPlus, Außenklima, Premium, and Bio was "4 Premium". A "4" on an old pack is Bio; old and new packs can still both turn up.
Haltungsform for pork covers only fattening. Sows, piglets, tail docking and castration are outside it. Only association rules cover those.
Bio milk can still come from tethered cows. EU-Bio allows seasonal tethering on farms of up to 50 animals; Öko-Test found only 4 of 20 organic milks proved otherwise (2021), and 11 of 20 organic yoghurt providers partly used such farms (2024).
Imported cheese has no level at all. Only a Bio logo says anything. A PDO seal protects origin and recipe, not the cows. Rennet type need not be labelled; Parmigiano Reggiano uses calf rennet only.
"Weidemilch" is not a legal term. Some pack levels on this page come from Open Food Facts, a crowd-sourced database of pack photos, not from the retailer; they are marked.
Lamb and goat have no level. Without an organic logo, nothing on the pack tells you how the animal was kept.
The cases are individual, not a sample. Most are activist recordings, usually made by entering barns at night; farms and authorities dispute several. Most concern Bio eggs because that is where most investigations were done. A brand with no cases was not shown to be clean.

Claude's recommendation

Claude's opinion, not a dataset

Ranked by the written rules behind each line and how much of a weekly shop it covers, using only the facts on this page. This is not a ranking of proven farm practice: for the top pick, no independent checks were found at all, and that means nobody's findings are on record, not that the farms passed.

Lidl, Bioland line

One association across meat, eggs and milk (about 100 products), with German organic eggs from rooster rearing since 2021. Bioland bans beak trimming and tail docking, caps hens at 6,000 per building and 140 per hectare, and requires pasture for cattle. The simplest store for "association logo on everything".

no independent checks found for this line.
Kaufland, K-Bio (Bioland or Demeter)

Bioland meat (17 items such as mince and goulash) and over 150 Bioland items including milk; Demeter is in the line too, and Demeter has the strictest rules on the page (3,000 hens per building, 16 kg/m² broilers, no dehorning). Check the logo on each pack, and pass on K-Wertschätze, which is only level 3.

the K-Bio Bioland eggs' "sehr gut" came from a questionnaire, not a farm visit, and Bio egg farms said to supply Kaufland were filmed in 2019 and 2023 (neither case names K-Bio).
Rewe, REWE Bio (Naturland)

All REWE Bio meat is Naturland, the eggs are code 0 with brother roosters, and Bioland milk has been there since January 2026. The widest Bio meat range among the full-range chains on the page.

Naturland allows the largest hen buildings of the four (12,000), only about 60% of the egg farms are Naturland, and Naturland-certified egg farms were filmed in 2021 (not linked to Rewe on the source page). Rewe's own 2025 cases are about HF3 and 4 pigs and Freiland eggs, not REWE Bio.

Eggs: Alnatura or denn's if one is near. Every egg there comes with reared roosters, mostly from association farms, and Alnatura Origin comes from Demeter and Bioland mobile barns (which hold about 50 to 2,500 hens). The small-flock figure in the pitfalls box points the same way. Neither chain's farms have been checked independently.

Milk, if tethering is what you care about: dennree at denn's is the one supermarket-shelf brand in Frankfurt-Bornheim that proved no tethered cows in Öko-Test 2021. Otherwise Haltungsform 3 or 4 milk rules tethering out on paper, which most Bio labels do not.

Cheese: for imported cheese the Bio logo is the only signal; for German cheese, a level 3 or higher on the pack (Edeka's own brand has it on half its cheese).

Locally: the Erzeugermarkt Konstablerwache (Dottenfelderhof) is the one place near Bornheim where you buy meat, milk and cheese from a named farm. The Bornheim butchers do not say where their animals come from, so ask before buying there.

Lamb: Edeka Nord's Natur Pur (Biopark) is the only named supermarket lamb line. Anywhere else, buy lamb or goat only with a Bio label, since nothing else on the pack means anything.

At Aldi Süd, take Nur Nur Natur (Naturland) over plain BIO, which is mostly the EU minimum. Penny's Naturgut is mostly EU-Bio too. For Aldi Nord, only the Naturland milk is known.

Sources

What this page cannot tell you. Which species each Bio line covers is mostly not itemised (e.g. "all REWE Bio meat", Penny's 750 products), so the meat tile means "some meat is listed". No Edeka egg line, no Alnatura meat line and nothing beyond milk at Aldi Nord was found; cheese and yoghurt associations at Rewe, Kaufland and Edeka are not confirmed. No Demeter own-brand dairy was found at any retailer. There is no data here on prices, on which branches stock a line, or on top-level turkey and duck lines. No independent checks were found for Demeter, Gäa, Lidl's Bioland line, Penny Naturgut, Netto BioBio, Aldi Nord Gut Bio, Rewe Premium Landbauern, Edeka Natur Pur and Hofglück, any HF4 chicken or turkey line, any named supermarket Bio or HF4 dairy line, any sheep or goat farm, or any Bornheim shop.

Levels and criteria

Haltungsform, criteria tables for all species: haltungsform.de PDF (file dated 24 Feb 2025; pages stamped March 2024 and November 2024). Overview and species list: haltungsform.de; FAQ.
Switch from 4 to 5 levels in summer 2024, old level names, coverage: Verbraucherzentrale.
State label, postponement to 1 Jan 2027: Deutscher Bundestag, 15 Jan 2026. Coalition agreement on 1 Oct 2027: agrarheute, 16 Oct 2026. Levels and scope: BZL; top agrar, 20 Nov 2023.
Eggs, barn rules: § 13a TierSchNutztV; cage phase-out: § 45 TierSchNutztV; ban, KAT, processed eggs: Verbraucherzentrale Niedersachsen; space per hen and shares: BZL infographics (linked under the images).
EU organic rules: Regulation (EU) 2018/848, Annex II (pasture access, 3,000 hens per compartment, 81-day rule), and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/464, Annex I (space for sheep, goats, hens, broilers); read via the text copies at legislation.gov.uk (2018/848) and legislation.gov.uk (2020/464) because EUR-Lex blocked automated access.
Retailers: Aldi Süd; Lebensmittel Praxis, 21 Oct 2025.
Photos: credited under each image. Photos from landwirtschaft.de and oekolandbau.de belong to the named photographers, BLE or the stock agencies; each credit links to the original.

Brands, rules and checks

EU law: Reg. (EU) 2018/848 Annex II and Art. 33, legislation.gov.uk copy; Impl. Reg. (EU) 2020/464 Annex I, legislation.gov.uk copy (these copies show the text as of end-2020; EUR-Lex blocked automated access); Del. Reg. (EU) 2023/2465, EU Publications Office; egg codes, Directive 2002/4/EC, annex; § 13a TierSchNutztV.
Associations: Bioland Richtlinien, March 2026; Naturland Richtlinien Erzeugung 05/2026; Demeter Gesamt-Richtlinie 2026; Gäa Richtlinien, March 2026; Biopark Erzeugerrichtlinie, January 2022.
Real practice: BLE egg report 2025; Thünen Steckbrief Legehennen 2018; Elbe et al., organic hens in large flocks; Bazer, LMU 2005; ISN factsheet Feb 2025; Thünen on tethering; Öko-Test milk 2021; Öko-Test yoghurt 2024; dpa on organic calves; foodwatch 2023; Bavarian organic control 2024; Initiative Tierwohl audits 2017.
Retailers: Rewe Bio, Rewe eggs, Rewe programmes; Bioland at Rewe; Edeka Bioland; Edeka Nord Natur Pur; Hofglück; Edeka/Netto eggs; Netto BioBio; Aldi and Naturland; Aldi Süd levels; Aldi Süd farm traceability; Lidl Bioland; Kaufland Bioland; Penny Naturgut; Alnatura Origin; denn's/biomarkt.de; Rossmann and Bioland.
Cases: linked in each case above.
Photos: every still is the publishing organisation's own image, credited under it. The one marketing photo is Aldi Süd's own.

Dairy and Bornheim shops

Haltungsform on dairy: Lebensmittel Praxis, Jan 2022; top agrar, 2 Jul 2021; top agrar, 25 Jul 2025 (Edeka, Lidl); Lebensmittel Praxis, 17 Jul 2025 (Lidl); top agrar (Edeka cheese); Lebensmittel Praxis (Aldi milk); Aldi Süd; top agrar (Rewe 90%); Lebensmittel Praxis, 2023 (Kaufland).
Weidemilch: Verbraucherzentrale NRW; Stiftung Warentest, 22 Feb 2023.
Tethering rules: Bioland Richtlinien March 2026, 6.1.1 and 6.2.1.1 to 6.2.1.3 (PDF); Gäa Richtlinien March 2026; Naturland Richtlinien Erzeugung 05/2026, B.II cattle, footnotes 32 and 33; Demeter Gesamt-Richtlinie 2026, 3.2.1, and Demeter's Leitfaden für Tierwohlkontrollen; Biokreis Richtlinien Erzeugung, April 2026, 8.1.2.4; Biopark Erzeugerrichtlinie, January 2022; BÖLW, 25 Apr 2024; Region Hannover, 7 Jul 2026; Thünen census figures and EU-Bio rule via the brands report.
Retailer lines: Bioland at Rewe; Edeka Bioland; Edeka 2022, no year-round tethering; Aldi Süd Nur Nur Natur 2026; Lidl Bioland; Kaufland Bioland; Netto Naturland; Alnatura Weidemilch, Feb 2024; Lebensmittel Zeitung, Aug 2026 (dennree); Hofgut Eichigt; Open Food Facts: REWE Bio Weidemilch, K-Bio Vollmilch, Naturgut Weidemilch.
Tests: linked in each case above. Cheese: Öko-Test on rennet; Parmigiano Reggiano disciplinare.
Shops: HFM market list; VisitFrankfurt; Erzeugermarkt Konstablerwache; Kleinmarkthalle, Hoos; reviewhero, Hoos; Gref-Völsing; Wikipedia; denn's Berger Str. 155; denn's Friedberger Landstr.; kennstdueinen (Alnatura Burgstraße); Feinkost NOY; MainÄppelHaus; OpenStreetMap for the Käseladen am Merianplatz, Josef's Bio, Metzgerei Völp, tegut and the hours marked OSM.
Photos: credited under each image.

Photos added on this page

Farm and advertising photos from Aldi Süd, Rewe, Alnatura and BioMarkt (denn's) pages, and practice photos from landwirtschaft.de (BZL/BLE) are credited under each image in Life in photos; retailer photos are credited under each image. Pack photos and logos are credited where they appear.