Local Restaurant Takes Foie Gras and Veal off the Menu After Animal Rights Campaign

For Immediate Release:
October 27, 2022

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

After hearing from local animal advocacy group SoFlo Animal Rights and PETA that ducks and geese used for foie gras are slaughtered after being force-fed until their livers swell from disease and that calves raised for veal spend their short lives in solitary confinement inside crates that often measure no more than 6 feet by 7 feet, Johan’s Joe just confirmed that it has removed the cruelly produced items from its menu.

“Johan’s Joe made the right call by deciding to stop serving the diseased livers of birds who were painfully force-fed and flesh from calves who were confined to tiny crates,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on other eateries that still offer these vile dishes to follow suit and urges diners to speak up for ducks, geese, and calves whenever they see foie gras or veal on offer.”

In foie gras production, several pounds of fat and grain are pumped into birds’ stomachs every day through tubes shoved down their throats, causing their livers to swell to up to 10 times their normal size. A PETA investigation into a foie gras producer in New York found that so many ducks died from ruptured organs due to overfeeding that workers who killed fewer than 50 birds per month were given a bonus. And for veal—a “coproduct” of the cruel dairy industry—male calves are traumatically separated from their mothers and confined to dark, claustrophobic “veal crates” before being violently killed at a young age.

Foie gras production is outlawed in more than a dozen countries as well as in California, and numerous companies, including Costco, IKEA, Sam’s Club, Target, and Whole Foods, refuse to sell it. Veal crates have been prohibited in European Union member countries since 2007.

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