Kroger Under Fire for Sourcing From Disgraced Egg Company

Grocer to Face Protest After PETA Investigation Revealed That Hens Were Beaten, Gassed, and Living in Squalor at Mahard Egg Farm

For Immediate Release:
March 4, 2019

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Cincinnati – PETA has sent a letter to The Kroger Co. Chair and CEO William Rodney McMullen calling on the company to reassess its relationship with Mahard Egg Farm, Inc. Kroger continues to sell eggs from Mahard and has refused PETA’s offer of a joint visit to its supplier’s farms to assess the animals’ living conditions. Video footage from the investigation revealed that workers at a Mahard facility in Oklahoma allowed chickens to languish in extreme heat, beat them, and confined them to crowded, filthy cages. Some were left to die and rot in cages or manure pits.

Armed with posters and screening video footage from the investigation, activists will gather outside Kroger’s headquarters on Tuesday to urge the company to stop sourcing eggs from the disgraced supplier.

When:    Tuesday, March 5, 12 noon

Where:    1014 Vine St., Cincinnati, OH 45202

“It’s shocking that Kroger continues to sell eggs from a supplier whose workers slammed chickens’ heads against metal bins and let thousands of others die of apparent heatstroke,” says PETA Director of Evidence Analysis Daniel Paden. “PETA urges Kroger to reconsider its relationship with Mahard Egg Farm.”

Following PETA’s investigation, the Murray County, Oklahoma, sheriff’s office opened a criminal investigation into Mahard and filed probable cause affidavits with prosecutors alleging felony cruelty-to-animals offenses.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a supremacist view of the world. A copy of the group’s letter to McMullen is available here. For more information, please visit PETA.org.