Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Safeway has adopted new policies to improve its animal welfare standards. This gigantic California-based grocery chain, with 1,743 stores in the U.S. and Canada, is bowing to some firm but gentle arm twisting from those friends to farm animals everywhere, The Humane Society of the United States:

“Safeway’s new policies represent important progress on basic animal welfare issues and will positively affect many thousands of animals,” said Paul Shapiro, senior director of The HSUS’s factory farming campaign. “Safeway’s move also sends a strong message to the agribusiness industry that it must rapidly move away from the worst factory farming abuses, such as intensive confinement systems and the conventional poultry slaughter method.”

The HSUS had filed a shareholder resolution last November to persuade Safeway to support a shift away from battery caged eggs, gestation crates, and inhumane poultry slaughter methods. Safeway got some prodding from PETA, too. The hugely influential retailer responded by agreeing to adopt more humane standards, so the HSUS has moved, fittingly, from arm-twisting to back-patting mode. Safeway’s turnaround will let thousands of farm animals turn around, too. In the words of that royal vegetarian, Sir Paul, It’s Getting Better All The Time. Kudos to Safeway for doing the right thing, and to HSUS and PETA for making them!

Learn more about the HSUS’s Factory Farming Campaign here.