The Real Scoop on Ice Cream: PETA Places Vegan Plea Near Baskin-Robbins

For Immediate Release:
July 6, 2023

Contact:
Brittany Williams 202-483-7382

As the dairy industry tries to promote July as National Ice Cream Month, a new message from PETA raised across from a Baskin-Robbins store and just a stone’s throw from Dairy Queen and Kroger stores may have consumers steering clear of dairy ice cream in favor of vegan options. Featuring a cow mired in manure with a swollen udder, the new sky-high appeal urges everyone to help spare cows suffering by ditching dairy—something that’s easy to do since Kroger stocks oat, soy, and almond ice creams; Baskin-Robbins offers Non-Dairy Mint Chocochunk; and Dairy Queen added a Non-Dairy Dilly Bar to its menu following a push from PETA.

“If consumers saw cows confined in filth and crying desperately for their stolen babies, they’d lose their taste for dairy ice cream,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges everyone to ditch dairy and leave cows in peace by opting for readily available and delicious vegan milks and ice creams.”

A recent study from the University of Copenhagen revealed that cows used for dairy suffer even more throughout their lives than those used for meat. In the dairy industry, calves are torn away from their mothers within a day of birth so the milk meant to nourish them can be stolen and sold to humans. It’s standard industry practice to forcibly and artificially inseminate cows—workers insert an arm into the animals’ rectum and a metal rod to deliver semen into their vagina—and to send them to slaughter once their bodies wear out. PETA’s investigations into dairy facilities have found workers electroshocking cows in the face, hitting them with poles and a cane, and abusing them in other ways.

PETA’s appeal is located at 3774 W. Broad St. (near the intersection with Viotis Drive).

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and offers a free vegan starter kit on its website. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.