Get Out While You Can! Shareholder PETA Tells Tyson to Go Vegan During Annual Meeting

For Immediate Release:
February 5, 2025

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

With a bird flu outbreak continuing to spread across the U.S., infecting dozens of people over the last year alone, resulting in one human death so far, and the on-farm slaughter of nearly 19 million chickens this year, a PETA representative will address Tyson leadership during the company’s annual shareholder meeting tomorrow, urging its leaders to see the writing on the wall and move to exclusively vegan meat production—to protect animals, public health, and the company’s own bottom line. 

When: Thursday, February 6, 10 a.m.

Where: Tyson Foods, Inc., 2008 South Thompson Street, Springdale

PETA, which owns stock in Tyson, will describe how bird flu is running rampant in the filthy, crowded sheds where chickens raised for Tyson’s Foods are crammed together, creating a viral soup where potentially deadly diseases mutate and spread, dealing a costly blow to the meat, egg, and dairy industries. Meanwhile, the demand for vegan food continues to skyrocket, as the company’s own vegan Raised & Rooted product line demonstrates.

“With another pandemic predicted and more people than ever realizing the catastrophic consequences of factory-farming animals, the meat industry is a sinking ship,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The future is vegan, and PETA strongly suggests that Tyson make the ethical and business savvy move to pandemic-proof, animal-friendly proteins.”

Chickens form complex social structures, dream when they sleep, and worry about the future, just as humans do—yet more chickens are raised and killed for food than all other land animals combined. In the meat industry, chickens are confined by the tens of thousands to severely crowded, filthy sheds before being trucked to slaughterhouses, where mechanized blades slit their throats—often while they’re still conscious—and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—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.

PETA’s shareholder question follows.

“Hi. I’m Racheli Holstein, and I’m here on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  PETA is one of Tyson’s shareholders, and we are concerned that avian flu is wreaking havoc on the animals used by the chicken and egg industry and is costing Tyson millions of dollars because chickens raised for their flesh and eggs spend their lives in crowded factory farms where diseases like avian flu spread like wildfire. More and more people are choosing vegan foods and Tyson has already recognized the demand for healthy, vegan food with its successful Raised & Rooted product line. My question is, is Tyson looking at the fact that animal-free agriculture is pandemic-proof, and considering transitioning to vegan meat production soon to protect profits and public health?”