Happening Now: PETA “Bulls” Encased in Cement Arrested While Blocking PepsiCo HQ to Protest Animal Abuse in Sugar Supply Chain

For Immediate Release:
May 6, 2026

Contact:
Alex Payne 202-483-7382

Right now, five PETA supporters dressed as bulls have been arrested while cemented at the entrance to PepsiCo headquarters to protest the company’s failure to address the abuse of bulls in its sugar supply chain. For months, PETA has been urging PepsiCo to stop sourcing sugar from partners and suppliers in India, where bulls are beaten, whipped, and forced to haul illegally overloaded sugarcane carts in extreme heat, causing many to suffer injuries, collapse from exhaustion, and some to die—and instead, source it from sugar mills that use only mechanized, animal-free methods. Additional videos and photos of the spectacle are available here.

PETA will also present a resolution during the company’s virtual annual shareholder meeting today, calling out the contradiction between PepsiCo’s animal welfare policy and struggling bulls being worked to injury and premature death in its sugar supply chain. PepsiCo claims that “animals deserve lives free from physical and mental suffering,” yet it has failed to take any action to stop the well-documented abuse of bulls from India, where the animals are beaten with sticks and whips, stabbed by barbed-wire spikes attached to their yokes, and forced to haul carts illegally overloaded with up to 8,000 pounds of sugarcane.

“PepsiCo must stop allowing bulls to be beaten and worked until they collapse to haul the sugar in Pepsi-branded beverages,” says PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk. “The company must honor its own policies and work with its suppliers to mechanize its sugar production—sparing these sensitive, intelligent animals from a lifetime of exploitation.”

PETA brought this abuse to the attention of PepsiCo’s leadership earlier this year, but the company has failed to act even when humane solutions exist, including eco-tractors that can replace multiple bulls and improve production efficiency and human worker welfare. Earlier this month, PETA mailed PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta a spiked yoke—an illegal torture device designed to control animals by painfully digging into their necks.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that when it comes to the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a bull is a dog is a boy. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.