According to China's state news agency Xinhua, stress relief measures should be taken for the birds in the processes of catching, transporting, loading and unloading.

Workers need to use special tools to seize chicken or both hands to grasp both wings instead of a single wing. Pulling and dragging chickens are banned. Stunning methods, such as gassing, should be adopted before slaughter.

Shandong is the country's leading chicken producer and exporter. Drafting of the standard was led by Qingdao Agricultural University and several food producers.

"We began to study the requirements of animal welfare abroad in 2003. As our clients from the European Union value animal welfare a lot, we adopted humane handling of chicken very early," said Yang Shengren, a quality supervisor with Nine-Alliance Group, a chicken raising and processing company.

Humane breeding and slaughter have increased the company's costs by about 2 million yuan (300,000 US dollars) per year.

"But it makes our products better and more acceptable to the foreigners and our goods can be exported to more countries," said Yang.