James Cromwell to Slam Whole Foods Over Sham Humane Marketing Scheme

For Immediate Release:
May 24, 2022

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

In a move that would make Ewan Roy proud, Succession actor James Cromwell will take on Amazon executives at the company’s virtual annual meeting tomorrow, asking when its subsidiary Whole Foods will stop allowing the sham Global Animal Partnership to “humane wash” meat by using misleading labels. The American Horror Story star will deliver PETA’s shareholder question on the group’s behalf, following its recent Amazon stock purchase.

“I have cared deeply about farmed animals ever since I had the great pleasure of meeting some of these remarkable individuals on the set of Babe,” the actor will state. “I know that many Whole Foods shoppers share my concern, so it’s a shame that Whole Foods is misleading these kind consumers through its Global Animal Partnership, or G.A.P., marketing scheme aimed at lulling people into believing that the animals whose little corpses they’re buying were raised and killed humanely. They weren’t.”

Drawing from PETA’s most recent investigation into a former “humane” Whole Foods supplier, Cromwell will detail how workers were found kicking and stomping on turkeys, simulating sex acts with injured and dying birds, and throwing hens at one another like basketballs: “Where was Whole Foods when this true American horror story was going on?”

In the days leading up to Cromwell’s confrontation, PETA has been hitting Austin, Texas, airwaves with a televised ad from the award-winning actor, in which he plays the role of a priest who refuses to absolve the man who invented the term “humane meat.”

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

PETA’s shareholder question follows.

My name is James Cromwell, and I have a question on behalf of my friends at PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

I have cared deeply about farmed animals ever since I had the great pleasure of meeting some of these remarkable individuals on the set of Babe. I know that many Whole Foods shoppers share my concern, so it’s a shame that Whole Foods is misleading these kind consumers through its Global Animal Partnership, or G.A.P., a marketing scheme aimed at lulling people into believing that the animals whose little corpses they’re buying were raised and killed humanely. They weren’t.

PETA’s most recent investigation into one of Whole Foods’ so-called “humane” suppliers exposed workers beating, stomping on, kicking, throwing, and trying to break the necks of terrified turkeys and even simulating sex acts with injured and dying birds. Where was Whole Foods when this true American horror story was going on?

After PETA’s exposé, Whole Foods and G.A.P. suspended the farm and its “humane” certification, but that farm’s turkeys are still being sold at other stores as “G.A.P.-certified” and “humanely raised.” Customers are still being duped, and Whole Foods and G.A.P. are still complicit.

So my question is this: When will Whole Foods require that G.A.P.’s certification label be removed from all companies that violate G.A.P. basic standards, and when will Whole Foods end the humane washing with this sham program?