‘Hell on Wheels’ Is Coming to Cincinnati: Squawking Chicken Truck to Ruffle Feathers at Oktoberfest

For Immediate Release:
September 14, 2022

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati diners just might think twice about chowing down on chicken paprikash after they see—and hear—“Hell on Wheels,” PETA’s new guerilla-marketing campaign featuring a life-size chicken transport truck covered with images of real chickens crammed into crates on their way to a slaughterhouse, complete with actual recorded sounds of the birds’ cries and a subliminal message every 10 seconds suggesting that people go vegan. The truck will stake out the festival from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as part of the group’s national tour.

“Behind every plate of schnitzel or paprikash is a once-living, sensitive individual who was crammed onto a truck for a terrifying, miserable journey to their death,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s ‘Hell on Wheels’ truck is an appeal to anyone who eats chicken to remember that the meat industry is cruel to birds and that the kindest meal is a vegan one.”

Birds killed for their flesh are bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight, and the sheds to which they’re confined are so filthy that the red, watery goo in packages of chicken is referred to as “fecal soup.” They’re trucked through all weather extremes, sometimes over hundreds of miles and without any food or water, to slaughterhouses, where their throats are slit—often while they’re still conscious.

The “Hell on Wheels” tour includes stops outside several other food festivals and state fairs: the West Chicago Food Festival in Illinois, the Taste of Buffalo in New York, Nashville’s Hot Chicken Music Festival and the Memphis Chicken & Beer Festival in Tennessee, the Michigan Chicken Wing Festival in Lansing, and the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. The truck is also driving by chicken restaurants in Charleston, West Virginia; Lexington, Kentucky; Raleigh, North Carolina; and other cities.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.