Animal Product Impact Scales 2026: Updated U.S. Estimates And The U.K.’s First Animal Product Impact Data
This blog was co-authored with Chris Bryant, Executive Director of Bryant Research.
Faunalytics’ core mission is to help advocates make data-driven decisions to decrease animal suffering and save animal lives. But what is the true cost of animal product consumption, in terms of animal lives and days of animal suffering, for different animal products? This was the question we set out to answer when we released the first version of our Animal Product Impact Scales (APIS) in 2020, a rigorously researched resource that provides such estimates.
In 2022, we made several updates and improvements to this resource. In 2023, we added institutional-level data to provide estimates of animal lives and suffering at the point of wholesale purchase so that advocates and decision-makers can use this resource in institutional food purchasing decisions. Providing data-driven estimates about which products cause the most harm to animals can help make advocacy, investment, and personal choices much more effective.
Our APIS resources have been one of our most widely used tools, which is why we want to keep them up-to-date and even more useful for a wider audience. We are now excited to announce a major 2026 update to our APIS resources, including an update to U.S. data and an expansion with U.K. data. This 2026 update was led by Chris Bryant at Bryant Research. Below, we highlight the big and exciting changes that went into this update, as well as recommendations for how advocates can use them.
What APIS Measures And Why It Matters
APIS estimates two things for each animal product: animal lives and days of suffering. These metrics are calculated per serving, per kilogram, and at the national level, giving advocates, organizations, and individuals multiple ways to engage with the data depending on their goals.
We calculate both of these metrics because they don’t always tell the same story. Eggs, for example, rank high on days of suffering per serving but lower on animal lives because individual laying hens produce many eggs over their lifetimes. Shellfish rank so high on both animal lives and days of suffering that we’ve excluded them from the main charts just to keep the comparisons readable (they’re available in the full data download for anyone who wants to analyze them separately.)
The updated resource now covers the United States and, for the first time, the United Kingdom, giving advocates country-specific estimates grounded in national data.
Key Findings: United States
The 2026 U.S. data is organized into three sections, each suited to different audiences and use cases.
Institutional impact estimates are expressed per kilogram and per pound, making them practical for conversations with food service managers and procurement officers, and for guiding institutional-level strategies and decision-making. The chart below shows animal lives per kilogram across product categories — a straightforward way to convey the scale of impact behind purchasing decisions and to help institutions track progress as their purchasing patterns shift.
Increasing numbers of institutions such as governments and universities are committed to more climate-friendly food procurement strategies. The problem is that an exclusive focus on the carbon footprint can make switching from beef to chicken or fish look like an obvious win. But this approach tends to leave animal suffering entirely out of the equation. Chicken and fish production emits far less carbon per kilogram than beef, but they come from animals with much smaller bodies, which means many more animals are affected per weight unit purchased. For a more complete picture, animal impact needs to be considered alongside climate impact.
Using these two charts together is one of the most powerful approaches available to advocates working with institutions. The climate data can help you get in the room to secure the commitment from decision-makers; the animal impact data gives the people responsible for implementing change the concrete numbers they need to consider both climate and animal impacts.
National-level impact estimates show which products, if replaced with plant-based alternatives, would have the greatest total effect on animal lives and suffering across the U.S. When entrepreneurs and manufacturers create new plant-based products, what should they prioritize? When individuals want to incrementally reduce their consumption of animal products, what should they cut out first? The information you’ll find here is designed to answer such questions. Chicken, fish, and egg products dominate these lists, a finding that reflects their short lifespans and small body sizes relative to the number of individuals involved in production.
Individual impact estimates show what a single person can accomplish by cutting out one product versus another on a per-serving basis. While the infographics above describe the products with the greatest total impact on animals, their relative impact is partially determined by the popularity of various products. These individual-level lists describe the impact that a single person can have by cutting out one specific product versus another, all else being equal. They show the days and lives affected on a per-serving basis. Similar to our infographics above, chicken and egg products dominate these lists in terms of both days of suffering per serving and animal lives per serving. For example, chicken luncheon meat is associated with over 9 days of suffering per serving, the highest of all of the 97 animal products that we analyzed for this resource. Dairy products consistently appear among the lowest-impact options on these lists, reflecting the large milk yield of the average dairy cow over her lifetime. Cheese requires more milk than, say, a glass of milk, so it ranks higher than other dairy products, but still well below chicken, fish, and eggs.
New In 2026: Key Findings In The United Kingdom
For the first time this year, U.K. estimates are included in APIS. Like the U.S. data, we’ve organized the estimates into sections on institutional, national, and individual impacts. These estimates draw on U.K.-specific data sources including the 2019–23 National Diet and Nutrition Survey and Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) supply data.
The big-picture pattern is consistent with what we see in the U.S.: chicken, fish, and egg products are associated with the most suffering and the most lives per serving, while dairy products are associated with the least. This consistency across two countries with different data sources is validating and suggests the underlying methodology we used is robust.
The most notable difference between the U.S. and the U.K. shows up in our fish estimates. Because fish consumption varies meaningfully between the two countries in terms of which species people eat, and because species differ considerably in body size, lifespan, yield, and the extent to which they’re farmed vs. wild-caught, the fish estimates diverge more than those for other product categories. This is expected, and doesn’t undermine confidence in either of our models.
How Advocates Can Use This Resource
We’ve heard from advocates using APIS in a range of ways over the years, and we want to highlight a few of the most impactful:
Alt-protein R&D and investment. For companies developing plant-based or cultivated alternatives, APIS can help identify which products offer the greatest potential to reduce animal suffering and save lives. If you’re deciding what to develop next, or where to direct funding, these estimates give you an animal-welfare lens to pair with other market and feasibility considerations.
Institutional and government advocacy. APIS estimates have been used to inform plant-based procurement policies in several major U.S. cities. If you’re working with institutions or governments on food policy, the per-kilogram estimates are designed to be practical for that context. Pairing animal impact data with climate impact data can make a stronger case than either alone.
Individual dietary decisions. Even a single person can affect many animals over the course of a year or a lifetime. APIS can help reducetarians identify which products to cut first for the greatest impact. Our resources can also help people who say “I could go vegan if it weren’t for ____” understand that going “vegan except for X” can still make a meaningful difference, depending on what X is.
Organizational strategy. We conducted a thorough process tracing case study showing how APIS data shaped strategic decision-making at Anima International, ultimately contributing to their pivot toward cage-free campaigns. It’s a useful read for any organization thinking about how to apply this data at the programmatic level.
What’s New In The 2026 Methodology
For those who want to know what changed under the hood, we’ve made several updates that improve the accuracy of our estimates. The short version is that the 2026 figures are generally somewhat lower than our previous estimates. This is not because animals are suffering less, but because we’ve corrected some modeling errors and updated the underlying data.
Here’s what changed:
- Updated U.S. data sources. Dietary consumption figures now draw on the 2021–23 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the most recent for which data was available, and supply figures use the most recent Loss-Adjusted Food Availability datasets from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Demand elasticity figures for beef, pork, and chicken were updated using retail scanner data, which is more accurate than the survey-based figures used previously.
- U.K. data added for the first time. U.K. estimates draw on the 2019–23 National Diet and Nutrition Survey, DEFRA supply data, and U.K.-specific sources for mortality rates, lifespans, and yields across all nine product categories.
- Corrected days-of-suffering formula. Our previous formula incorrectly multiplied indirect impacts (like feed fish and pre-slaughter mortality) by the lifespan of the primary animal. In reality, a wild-caught anchovy used as feed suffers for one day regardless of whether it’s fed to a pig or a chicken. The corrected formula treats these indirect impacts separately.
- Corrected dairy loss proportion. The previous model treated byproducts of dairy manufacturing (like skim milk and buttermilk) as lost products. Since these are actually consumed as separate dairy products, we’ve updated the model to use milk-solids ratios instead.
- New dairy allocation factor. A dairy cow’s life contributes to two outputs: milk and beef. Following the International Dairy Federation’s standard approach, we now attribute 88% of a dairy animal’s lifetime impact to milk and 12% to beef. This affects all dairy figures for both countries.
- U.S. egg estimates now account for molting. Approximately 37% of U.S. egg farms extend hens’ laying cycles across two seasons through a practice called molting. Because molted hens produce more eggs per day of life than non-molted hens, accounting for this results in fewer days of suffering per kilogram of eggs compared to previous estimates.
Full methodological details and all of the the raw data can be downloaded from our OSF project page.
How U.S. Figures Have Changed Since 2020
Overall, the 2026 U.S. estimates are somewhat lower than our previous estimates for both animal lives and days of suffering per kilogram across every product category. However, the estimates from these different models are telling a broadly consistent story, with the differences explained by specific updates to the underlying data and methods.
The two largest shifts are in our estimates concerning pork and eggs:
- Pork shows the largest drop in animal lives per kilogram, driven almost entirely by updated estimates of how fishmeal is allocated across farmed animal species. Between 2019 and 2025, the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA) substantially revised its estimates of the share of feed fish going to pigs. With the updated allocation, far fewer feed fish deaths are attributed to pork production.
- Eggs show a large drop in animal lives per kilogram, driven by the addition of molting to the U.S. model. Because approximately 37% of U.S. egg farms extend hens’ laying cycles across two seasons, and because molted hens produce more eggs per day of life than non-molted hens, accounting for this practice meaningfully reduces the estimated impact per kilogram of eggs.
- Fish also show a drop in animal lives per kilogram, driven by two main factors. First, we updated our estimates of the elasticity factor for fish, diluting the impact per fish not bought. Second, we updated the weightings of the main fish species consumed to reflect more recent data, which shifted somewhat towards larger-bodied fish (particularly salmon and pangasius).
Other notable changes include meaningful reductions in lives per kilogram for shrimp, beef, and dairy. The dairy reduction is largely explained by the new dairy allocation factor and corrected loss proportion methodology described above.
United States Vs. United Kingdom: What The Comparison Shows
Despite drawing on entirely different national data sources and, in some cases, different modeling approaches, the U.S. and U.K. estimates are broadly consistent across all product categories. That agreement across two independent models is one of the most validating findings of the 2026 update.
A few differences are worth noting:
- Fish estimates diverge the most, which is expected. Unlike other categories, fish consumption varies considerably between the two countries in terms of which species are eaten. U.S. consumption skews toward tilapia, pangasius, and catfish, while U.K. consumption skews toward haddock, sardines, and mackerel. These species differ substantially in body size, lifespan, and yield, as well as the extent to which they’re farmed or wild-caught, so some divergence in the estimates is to be anticipated.
- Dairy estimates show the largest percentage gap, but this is also expected. Dairy’s impact per kilogram is so small relative to other products that even modest differences in underlying parameters produce large percentage gaps. In absolute terms, dairy remains the lowest-impact product by a wide margin in both countries.
- All other categories — beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey, and eggs — fall within a range that supports confidence in the robustness of the methodology across different national data sources.
Explore The Resource
Whether you’re an individual thinking about your diet, an advocate working on institutional food policy, or an organization making strategic decisions about where to focus your efforts, we hope APIS gives you a sharper picture of where your work can have the greatest impact for animals.
Questions about how to apply this data to your specific context? Reach out to our research team — we offer free office hours for exactly this kind of work.
