Wisconsin’s Old Fashioned Cheese Among Three to End Funding for Animal Tests After PETA Push

For Immediate Release:
March 13, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

In a significant win for animals, Mayville-based Old Fashioned Cheese has stopped funding cruel and pointless experiments on animals at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Food Research Institute after hearing from PETA. The company joins Ohio-based Great Lakes Cheese and Kingston-based Dairy Industries Jamaica Ltd. in making the change.

“Thanks to the swift action of these three companies, 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 General Mills and Kraft Heinz to follow their lead by demanding that their institute funding never be used to torment monkeys, mice, or any other animals.”

While PETA, a vegan organization, will not fully endorse the companies until they switch to dairy-free products, we praise them for this move.

After PETA informed the companies that the Food Research Institute force-feeds mice parasite-infested feces, poisons pregnant monkeys and kills their unborn babies, and conducts other deadly experiments, all three requested the institute use their funding only for non-animal research.

PETA provided information outlining how experimenters force-fed pregnant monkeys whipping cream contaminated with listeria and cut them open before dissecting their dead babies killed by the bacteria. Experimenters also injected mice with botulinum bacteria, waited for them to die, and killed others.

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.

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.