PETA Urges UW-Madison Institute to End Animal Tests After Wave of Sponsors Cut, Restrict Funding

For Immediate Release:
June 5, 2025

Contact:
Brandi Pharris 202-483-7382

As revealed today by the Isthmus, PETA recently sent a letter to the University of Wisconsin–Madison Food Research Institute (FRI), urging it to end all animal testing in favor of human-relevant research methods as the number of companies ending or restricting their funding for the institute’s cruel and pointless experiments on animals grows.

Eurofins, Jones Dairy Farm, and Kerry Group are the latest to have restricted funding of FRI away from animal testing, joining a dozen other corporate sponsors that have done the same or pulled funds entirely for the institute’s gruesome tests on animals after hearing from PETA.

FRI is in the University’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, claiming its mission is to “enhance the safety of the food supply.” However, FRI has paid experimenters to force-feed mice parasite-infested feces and force-feed pregnant monkeys whipping cream contaminated with listeria before cutting them open and dissecting their dead babies. The institute also paid experimenters to inject mice with botulinum bacteria, wait for them to die, and dissect them.

 Credit: PETA

“It’s time the Food Research Institute read the room: No one, from corporate sponsors to taxpayers, wants to flush money down the drain for cruel tests on animals that help no one,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA calls on FRI to join this long-overdue reset of U.S. research and stop tormenting monkeys, mice, and other animals for junk science.”

After hearing from PETA, the institute changed its sponsorship policy and created a new fund—the “Food Research Institute Programmatic (Non-animal) Support Fund”—that lets sponsors prevent their donations from funding animal testing.

The tide is turning against the animal experimentation industry nationwide. The National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency all declared in April that they are shifting focus to state-of-the-art, animal-free research methods.

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