Austin-Based Egg Factory Farm, Vital Farms’ Newest Shareholder Is … PETA?!
For Immediate Release:
February 17, 2026
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
PETA has bought just enough shares in Austin-based factory farm, Vital Farms, to allow it access to the egg producer’s boardroom to raise Cain over its “humane washing” claims. PETA is setting out to attend the company’s annual meetings, submit shareholder resolutions, and directly pressure Vital Farms executives to stop deceiving shoppers about the suffering of hens it exploits for their eggs, from the hatchery to the slaughterhouse.
Hens used by Vital Farms spend the first five months of their short lives packed into sheds before being moved to farms. The company operates in regions with months of extreme temperatures as low as 19 degrees and as high as 95 degrees——resulting in the chickens being kept locked indoors to prevent risk of lost profits from the hens’ weather-related ailments or death. This means the birds are kept indoors for much of the year, contradicting the egg producer’s consumer-comforting, “pasture-raised” claims. And despite its deceptive “Certified Humane” label, Vital Farms sources chicks from suppliers that are allowed to cut off portions of hens’ beaks with a hot blade. The “certified humane” label also allows Vital Farms to kill hens at about age 18 months, when they are no longer as profitable, sending them to slaughterhouses where mechanized blades slit their throats. Studies have shown that many hens killed this way are often still conscious when their throats are slit, and many are scalded to death or drowned in de-feathering tanks.
“Hens used by Vital Farms are packed into cramped, filthy sheds for huge portions of their lives, then trucked to the slaughterhouse when their egg production slows, just like hens on every other factory farm,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Vital Farms to end its humane-washing scam, and urges consumers to please choose vegan foods, the only humane options.”
Chickens have complex social structures, dream when they sleep, and worry about the future. PETA notes that it’s easy to replace eggs in cooking and baking with a few simple, low-cost swaps, and that vegan egg options such as Just Egg are available in stores. Every person who goes vegan spares the lives of roughly 200 animals per year and reduces their own risk of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and other illnesses. PETA’s free vegan starter kit can help anyone thinking of making the switch.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
