Video: Shoppers React to Footage of ‘Free-Range’ Hens in Berks County

PETA Warns Buyers: Nellie’s Free Range Eggs Aren’t What They Seem

For Immediate Release:
November 1, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

“Betrayed,” “false advertising,” “disgusting,” and “another big lie”—that’s what Whole Foods shoppers said in a new reaction video about Nellie’s Free Range Eggs after watching PETA’s eyewitness footage from a Womelsdorf farm that supplies eggs to the company.

PETA’s footage shows that around 20,000 hens were crammed into a single crowded shed with severely restricted access to the outdoors—which they could reach only by fighting their way to the hatchways. They had just 1.2 square feet of floor space each, which is barely larger than their bodies. In contrast, Nellie’s website claims that hens whose eggs it uses “roam and strut throughout their wide open pasture.” As one Whole Foods shopper says in the video, “That is not what I imagined ‘free-range’ to be.”

“No reasonable shopper would think that ‘free-range’ means that hens are crammed together so tightly that it’s hard for workers to avoid stepping on them,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Compassionate consumers, don’t be duped by these misleading marketing schemes. The only label that indicates truly cruelty-free food is ‘vegan.’”

Industry surveys have found that over 60 percent of consumers find chicken labels confusing and that the majority mistakenly think that “cage-free” and “free-range” mean that the birds have been raised outdoors. “That’s really f*cked up,” one shopper says in PETA’s video, and every shopper who viewed the footage said that they would never buy Nellie’s Free Range Eggs in the future.

Broadcast-quality video footage is available upon request, and photos are available here. PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat.” For more information, please visit PETA.org.