It’s a Dirty Business: Baton Rouge Campaign Pushes Raising Cane’s to Label Poop in Chicken

For Immediate Release:
October 17, 2022

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

Hitting local airwaves today and taking aim at Raising Cane’s, a new PETA video is warning diners that poop could be lurking in any chicken finger. The TV spot is part of a push from PETA for the locally based chain to label products with the amount of fecal matter they contain, as bacteria from feces, such as E. coli, are commonly found in packages of chicken.

In the video, PETA’s protagonist reads a news alert on her phone: “If you’re eating chicken, you’re eating poop.” Disgusted, she can hear, see, and think of nothing else. Neither would Raising Cane’s diners if they knew that at the end of a slaughterhouse line, chickens float in a tank of water, which 60 Minutes has referred to as “fecal soup.” Just one bird with feces in their intestines can contaminate all the other birds in a tank.

The punchy, pro-vegan message will be airing through Friday on WAFB during The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and The Late Late Show With James Corden.

“Knowing that chicken parts are basically marinating in feces is enough to make anyone switch to vegan vittles,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on companies like Raising Cane’s to ‘cut the crap’ and label their products honestly or, better yet, sell vegan chicken instead.”

PETA points out that the federal government only has a policy against visible feces on the production line and that faster slaughter speeds now increase the risk of contamination as well as improper stunning, and it allows 25% of ground chicken to contain salmonella—which causes food poisoning and can lead to reactive arthritis. According to Consumer Reports, about 65% of packages of raw chicken breasts contain E. coli. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even recommends not washing chicken for fear that dangerous bacteria will spread to kitchen surfaces.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers free vegan starter kits. For more information, please visit PETA’s website or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.