PETA to KFC Execs: When Will You Stop Your Suppliers' Worst Abuses of Chickens?

Group Will Grill Yum! Brands Executives at Company's Annual Meeting

For Immediate Release:
May 19, 2010

Contact:
Nicole Matthews  757-622-7382

Louisville, Ky. -- A representative of PETA--which owns stock in KFC's parent company, Yum! Brands--will question executives at the company's annual meeting in Louisville on Thursday. PETA wants to know why Yum! Brands' chief executive and board have ignored the recommendations of their own animal welfare advisors--recommendations that would curb many of the abuses that chickens who are killed for KFC endure. Yum! Brands is one of the largest buyers of chickens in the country.

When:    Thursday, May 20, 9 a.m.
Where:   Yum! Conference Center, 1900 Colonel Sanders Ln., Louisville

"There is a clear gap between KFC's animal welfare claims and the ways in which birds who are killed for its restaurants are abused," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "KFC should do the right thing and require its suppliers to make the changes that were recommended by its own animal welfare council."

The roughly 1 billion chickens killed each year for KFC have their throats cut while they are still conscious, and millions of them are scalded to death in defeathering tanks. KFC ignored recommendations for animal welfare improvements that were made by its own animal welfare advisors, including five who have since resigned in frustration.

One KFC advisor recommended that the company switch to a less cruel chicken-slaughter method called "controlled-atmosphere killing," which would prevent birds in slaughterhouses from being abused by workers and scalded to death. In a PETA undercover investigation of a KFC "Supplier of the Year" slaughterhouse, workers were documented tearing the heads off live birds, spitting tobacco in birds' eyes, spraypainting birds' faces, and slamming birds against walls.

PETA's statement to Yum! Brands is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA's Web site KentuckyFriedCruelty.com.