Rejected! PETA’s ‘Don’t Buy Cheap Chicken’ Ad Too ‘Graphic’ for Salisbury TV

Real-Life Video Shut Out From Showing Shoppers the Source of Food Lion’s Discount Meats

For Immediate Release:
September 14, 2015

Contact:
Catie Cryar 202-483-7382

A new PETA ad targeting Food Lion’s discount meat won’t be airing during news broadcasts in the grocery chain’s hometown anytime soon, so the public will have to guess at how corners are cut in producing cheap chicken. That’s because WCCB-TV has deemed the spot too “graphic” to run before midnight, while WSOC-TV and WAXN-TV ad representatives have rejected the ad as “too violent”—something PETA says is exactly what it wants customers to know, because they’re unwittingly causing that violence.

The ad, available here, shows chicken parts that slither out of meat trays and come together to form a living chicken, who struggles to breathe. A voiceover explains, “Food Lion lures customers into its stores with the promise of ‘cheap chicken.’ For ‘special offers,’ these chickens end up paying the price. Factory farmers force them to live in appalling conditions and in constant pain.”

PETA President Ingrid Newkirk says, “Anyone who is shocked by the graphic content of PETA’s ad would probably be even more disturbed to see how these chickens are kept in windowless sheds, are bred to grow so fat so fast that they can’t bear their own weight, and have their throats cut open while they’re still conscious. We urge everyone to consider the true cost of every piece of cheap chicken and try vegan food selections instead.”

As documented by PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—chickens used for food are fed a steady diet of antibiotics and bred to grow so large that their legs often break under their own weight. At the slaughterhouse, they’re shackled upside down and their throats are slit, while others are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.

PETA was inspired to produce the ad after Dutch animal rights group Wakker Dier persuaded a major supermarket chain in the Netherlands to cut back dramatically on the number of specials on “cheap meat.” PETA worked with Wakker Dier and Dutch production company MacGyver Amsterdam to create the new ad, and Dutch actor Rutger Hauer provided the voiceover.

A broadcast-quality copy of the ad is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.