Suffering and Death at ‘Humane’ Pork Supplier Spark Whole Foods Protest
PETA Calls for an End to Misleading Claims After ‘Happy Meat’ Producer Found Packing Pigs Into Hot Sheds, Denying Adequate Care
For Immediate Release:
September 23, 2015
Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382
Armed with posters and video footage showing the crowding, lameness, rectal prolapses, and lack of prompt veterinary care recently exposed at a Whole Foods “humane” pork supplier, PETA members will descend on a local Whole Foods store on Thursday to demand an end to the chain’s misleading “humane meat” claims, which are currently under fire in a class-action lawsuit.
Where: Whole Foods, 181 Cambridge St. (at the entrance to Charles River Plaza, between Joy and S. Russell streets), Boston
When: Thursday, September 24, 12 p.m.
“Lameness, severe crowding, and painful medical conditions that weren’t given adequate care were all found at a Whole Foods ‘happy meat’ supplier,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “The only humane meal is a vegan one, and PETA is calling on Whole Foods to stop lying to customers about the animals who suffer and die for its expensive cuts of meat.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—exposed multiple discrepancies between Whole Foods’ “5-Step™” animal-care standards and the daily reality for pigs at Sweet Stem Farm, LLC, in Pennsylvania. Some pigs were given only about 5 square feet of space on a concrete floor, and none of them had access to the farm’s lush green grass. Pigs were left to suffer from fever, lameness, bleeding rectal prolapses, and other conditions for weeks without being examined or treated by a veterinarian, to the eyewitness’s knowledge. And although Whole Foods claims, “Our Meat: No Antibiotics, Ever,” many pigs who were given antibiotics were sent to a slaughterhouse that supplies Whole Foods.
Photographs and broadcast-quality footage are available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
