Victory! National Coffee Association Ends Funding for Animal Tests After PETA Push

For Immediate Release:
July 7, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

In a significant win for animals, the New York-headquartered National Coffee Association and the Pennsylvania-based Backyard Beans Coffee Company have stopped funding cruel and pointless experiments on animals at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Food Research Institute after hearing from PETA.

“Thanks to the swift action of these java giants, the Food Research Institute has fewer dollars to squander on cruel tests on animals that help no one,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA calls on Wegmans Food Markets, General Mills, and Kraft Heinz to follow their lead by demanding that their institute funding is never used to torment monkeys, mice, or any other animals.”

The Food Research Institute has paid experimenters to force-feed mice parasite-infested feces; force-feed pregnant monkeys whipping cream contaminated with listeria, cut them open, and dissect their dead babies killed by the bacteria; and inject mice with botulinum bacteria, wait for them to die, and dissect them.

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. Fifteen sponsors, including PepsiCo, Inc. and Campbell Soup Company, have either directed their donations to the animal-free fund or cut off sponsorship entirely.

© iStock.com/tenra

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.