Feds See Pigs Beaten at Maker of ‘Old Folks’ Sausage; PETA Seeks Kill-Floor Cameras

For Immediate Release:
April 25, 2022

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

After just-released federal reports that workers at F.B. Purnell Sausage Co.—the maker of “Old Folks” sausage and a vendor for the Louisville Bats—beat and kicked pigs as they were led to slaughter, electroshocked sows up to six times on the head and over their hearts, and left a disabled animal lying in “fecal soup,” PETA fired off a letter today to the company’s president, Todd Purnell, calling on him to livestream kill-floor operations and refer the workers who abused pigs to police for possible cruelty-to-animals charges.

“As if the journey to slaughter weren’t terrifying enough, these bullies punched, kicked, and repeatedly electroshocked helpless pigs,” says PETA Vice President of Evidence Analysis Dan Paden. “PETA is calling for this company to help stop more egregious abuse by publicly livestreaming slaughter operations and is urging anyone disturbed by these animals’ suffering to go vegan.”

PETA has also asked Purnell to permanently reassign all the workers involved to positions that don’t involve contact with live animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Purnell follows.

April 25, 2022

Fred Todd Purnell
President
F.B. Purnell Sausage Co. Inc.

Dear Mr. Purnell:

Recent U.S. Department of Agriculture reports detail that your employees beat and kicked pigs as they were being led to slaughter, electroshocked sows (the “old folks,” if you will, of your industry) up to six times on their head and/or over their heart, and left a disabled animal lying in “fecal soup.” Operations at your slaughterhouse are anything but “gooo-od,” and immediate changes are needed to prevent more illegal animal suffering there.

Will you please publicly livestream video from all areas of your facility where live animals are handled? With $70 million in annual sales, the company can clearly afford it. Workers would take their duty to handle animals lawfully more seriously if they knew that caring people were watching.

As Dr. Temple Grandin, the world’s foremost expert on livestock welfare, writes, “Plants [t]hat are doing a good job should show what they are doing.” Your industry often complains that today’s consumers do not understand how animals are raised and killed for food. Please help by enabling us to observe your workers moving countless individual pigs—who value their lives as we value ours—off crowded trucks in all weather, slashing or sticking their throats, and bleeding them to death.

At the very least, will you permanently reassign the workers referenced in the federal reports to jobs that do not involve having contact with any live animals—such as evisceration, butchering, and packaging—and report those who beat and kicked pigs to police for investigation for apparent violations of Kentucky’s anti-cruelty statute?

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Daniel Paden
Vice President of Evidence Analysis
Cruelty Investigations Department