Whistleblower: Austin-Based Certification Program Tied to Cruelty to Chickens; Company Execs Shrug it All Off

For Immediate Release:
May 7, 2025

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

A veteran meat industry insider is blowing the whistle, turning to PETA for help addressing allegedly abusive handling of chickens that cause them injuries and botched killings at a chicken supplier that is “animal welfare certified” by the locally headquartered Global Animal Partnership, a meat, egg, and dairy humane-washing scheme that cons consumers into paying more for the same old cruelties. The certification props up factory farms and allows animal-exploiting companies to slap the deceptive labels on their products—even though PETA investigators have documented widespread and systemic cruelty and suffering at all 12 certified facilities they visited.

This afternoon, PETA met with Farmer Focus executives in person to share the video and photo evidence provided by the whistleblower, but the executives refused to commit to any action to prevent cruelty to chickens from occurring at the slaughterhouse and on contract farms and declined to say if they already knew about such abuses.

The whistleblower indicated that birds were “slammed” and caught in cage trays during transport, breaking and bruising their wings and legs.

The whistleblower, who supplied PETA with photos and video footage reportedly captured inside a slaughterhouse owned by Virginia-based Farmer Focus, has also alleged that the corporation is “defrauding” consumers, who pay higher prices for their products because of their sham “humane” and “animal welfare certified” labels.

The whistleblower’s report includes the following allegations:

• As they approach an automated blade that is supposed to cut their throats, conscious birds struggle frantically, frequently causing them to be slashed on their faces and bodies. Untrained backup employees often botch the manual cutting of these birds’ throats, and “in many cases,” birds are still alive and aware when their heads are pulled off.
• Chickens’ wings are bruised and broken, and dislocated—as the whistleblower’s photographs and videos indicate—as a result of the birds being “slammed” and trapped in cage trays during transport.
• The electrical “stunning bath” is overfilled—causing some birds to drown—and its voltage is so improperly managed that birds are subjected to ineffective electroshocks.

“The Global Animal Partnership’s nonsense ‘animal welfare’ labels whitewash horrific animal suffering, including at Farmer Focus, where, according to this whistleblower, battered birds spent their last moments in terror and pain,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Cruel conditions like these are exactly why PETA urges everyone to ignore meaningless labels like ‘humane’ and to please eat vegan.”

According to the whistleblower, Farmer Focus intentionally overstocks massive sheds with birds and some contract farmers deliberately startle them, which leads to “prevalent and acute” rates of deep pectoral myopathy, turning their breast tissue green, as shown in the photos the whistleblower provided PETA; “knowingly defraud[s]” consumers by “consistently” putting the incorrect farm ID codes on its “traceable” products and mislabels other products; and has severe rodent and termite infestations, buckling ceilings, and sewage drains that back up and flood, causing a “horrific” odor and contaminated water to flood onto the production floor at the Harrisonburg, Virginia, slaughterhouse.

Farmer Focus’s slaughterhouse kills approximately 600,000 chickens per week, and its products are sold at chain stores, including Kroger, Publix, Safeway, The Fresh Market, and Harris Teeter. PETA is submitting formal complaints to federal authorities about the company’s reportedly widespread, chronic noncompliance with federal regulations.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kitsfor people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.