ThanksVegan? Canada’s Top Grocers Join PETA for Holiday Campaign

The Movement for Meat-Free Feasts Gets a Boost With Tofurky Free-for-Alls, Airport Ads, a Recipe Guide, and More

For Immediate Release:
October 7, 2021

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

Will October 11 mark ThanksVegan? PETA’s betting on it! The group has enlisted Sobeys, Save-On-Foods, Buy-Low Foods, IGA, and other major grocery chains across Canada to showcase their ready-to-roast vegan turkeys and other vegan holiday fare. Plus, Toronto’s Animal Liberation Kitchen and The Very Good Butchers, based in Victoria and with locations from coast to coast, will also spread the #ThanksVegan word on social media to encourage everyone to enjoy a bird-friendly holiday—something that’s clearly already on many Canadians’ minds, as the number of online searches involving the word “vegan” in Canada grew by 113% from 2016 to 2020.

To drive the message home, PETA has plastered the cities of Abbotsford, British Columbia (including the airport), and Brandon, Manitoba, with images of turkeys declaring, “I’m ME, Not MEAT”; will give away free vegan roasts in Montréal, and other major cities; and has created an ultimate Canadian ThanksVegan guide for people across the country.

“When people realize that turkeys love their families, feel pain and fear, and value their lives, they’re eager to put a Tofurky on the table,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA offers recipes, shopping tips, and more so that everyone can enjoy a delicious ThanksVegan meal that leaves gentle birds in peace.”

Turkeys can live up to 10 years, but those raised for food are usually slaughtered when they’re babies—between 12 and 26 weeks old—and millions are killed each year for Thanksgiving in Canada alone. The young birds are hung by their feet from metal shackles and dragged through an electrified bath, and they’re often still conscious when their throats are slit and they’re dumped into scalding-hot defeathering tanks.

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