PETA Buys Amazon Stock on Intl. Women’s Day to Advocate for Hens, Sows, Other Female Animals

For Immediate Release:
March 8, 2022

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

In time for International Women’s Day (March 8), PETA has just purchased stock in Whole Foods’ parent company, Amazon, in order to influence the grocery chain to stop humane washing foods for which hens, mother cows, and other female animals are exploited. The stock purchase will allow PETA to attend the company’s annual meetings, submit shareholder resolutions, and pressure executives over—among other issues—Whole Foods’ Global Animal Partnership (GAP) labels on meat, which mislead consumers into believing that animals did not suffer.

PETA’s most recent investigation into a GAP-certified company revealed that workers at Plainville Farms pretended to masturbate with a dying hen and abused animals in other ways. Plainville workers kicked and stomped on turkeys—including those who were sick, injured, and unable to walk—and workers threw hens at one another like basketballs. Whole Foods sold and marketed meat from Plainville as “humane” until it received pushback from PETA and consumers.

“Other animals don’t want their bodies claimed, objectified, or exploited any more than a woman would,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “With this stock purchase, PETA will hold Whole Foods accountable for duping customers into thinking it’s ever humane to consume meat, eggs, or milk.”

PETA notes that sexual exploitation is rampant in animal agriculture because of speciesism, the human-supremacist mentality that all other species are inferior to our own. Pigs, cows, and other animals endure repeated artificial insemination, and once their reproductive systems wear out, they’re sent to slaughter—as are the hens who are forced to live packed on top of each other on filthy egg farms.

More information about previous PETA investigations into Whole Foods suppliers is available here.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any way.” For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.