Coke CEO Faces Pushback After Ignoring Concerns Over Sugarcane Sourcing, PETA Demands Zero Bull

For Immediate Release:
April 30, 2025

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Norfolk, Va. –

Although Coca-Cola claimed it would “answer all questions” at its shareholder meeting today, the company failed to acknowledge PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s question concerning the company’s ties to the sugarcane industry in India, where it’s common for factories to exploit impoverished migrant workers who use exhausted, injured, and ailing bullocks to haul heavy loads of sugarcane.

Now, Newkirk has just fired off an urgent letter to CEO James Quincey urging him to address why his company has not committed to bull-free sugar—produced with eco-tractors instead of beleaguered bulls—which would save bullocks from backbreaking work and make the sugar cane industry more efficient and profitable for the workers whose entire families make less than $4,000 a year—a far cry from Quincey’s over $20 million annual income.

Newkirk points out that a PETA-supported project replacing bullocks with eco-tractors has already replaced one third of bullocks in a cane district, sparing them a lifetime of abuse and improving income for workers.

“If we pull back the veil ever so slightly, the disparity is stark: with all due respect, you bring home over $20 million a year, whereas a bullock cart owner’s entire working family makes less than $4,000 a year,” writes Newkirk. “We have an opportunity – a duty in fact – to transform the sugarcane industry by doing something quite simple: require sugarcane factories to mechanize. … I do hope that Coca-Cola, as a global industry leader that points to a commitment to ethical practices, will not let this issue go unanswered.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to 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.

Newkirk’s letter to Quincey follows.

April 30, 2025

James Quincey

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

The Coca-Cola Company

Dear Mr. Quincey:

Today at Coca-Cola’s annual shareholder meeting, my critical question regarding our company’s ties to India’s cruel sugarcane industry was not addressed at all. This omission was despite publicly claiming to answer all questions pertinent to our company. Indeed, sugar is pertinent, as is the welfare of the living beings of two different species: the impoverished families who cut the sugar, and the beleaguered bullocks who pull it.

Please, will you respond to the question I asked:

“My name is Ingrid Newkirk, and I’m the president of PETA and a longtime shareholder. The New York Times revealed our company Coca-Cola’s ties to India’s cruel sugarcane industry, which exploits families of desperately poor migrant workers who depend on bullocks to carry sugarcane to the factories. The bullocks struggle to haul carts illegally overloaded with cane and suffer lameness, painful abscesses, and muscle tears. They are beaten with sticks and whips to keep going when they are exhausted. They suffer wounds from barbed-wire spikes attached to their yokes and facial tears from thick nose ropes. They are literally worked to death. Coca-Cola can do right by bullocks and worker families by sourcing only bull-free sugar. A PETA-supported project replacing bullocks with eco-tractors has already replaced one third of bullocks in a cane district, sparing them a lifetime of abuse and improving income for workers. When will Coca-Cola honor its sustainable agriculture principles and commit to bull-free sugar?”

If we pull back the veil ever so slightly, the disparity is stark: with all due respect, you bring home over $20 million a year, whereas a bullock cart owner’s entire working family makes less than $4,000 a year, barely enough to buy one onion and a few chapatis for their evening meal, cooked with cow dung on a bed of sticks beside their makeshift tent in the field outside the factory. We have an opportunity – a duty in fact – to transform the sugarcane industry by doing something quite simple: require sugarcane factories to mechanize. This would make cane cutting and delivery more efficient and profitable for workers and for our company, and eliminate cruelty to bullocks.

I do hope that Coca-Cola, as a global industry leader that points to a commitment to ethical practices, will not let this issue go unanswered. I look forward to a reply and action.

Very truly yours,

Ingrid E. Newkirk

President, PETA and all PETA affiliates internationally