Kroger’s Latest Shareholder Is … PETA!
For Immediate Release:
January 6, 2022
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
This morning, because Harris Teeter supermarkets are still selling products from supplier Plainville Farms, which PETA investigated and found severe cruelty—including sexual abuse—inflicted on turkeys, the group snatched up stock in Kroger, the grocery chain’s locally based parent company. The stock purchase will allow PETA to attend Kroger’s annual meetings, submit shareholder resolutions, and pressure executives from the inside to reconsider Harris Teeter’s ties to Plainville Farms.
Matthews, N.C. — This morning, because locally based grocery chain Harris Teeter is still selling products from supplier Plainville Farms, which PETA investigated and found severe cruelty—including sexual abuse—inflicted on turkeys, the group snatched up stock in Harris Teeter’s parent company, Kroger. The stock purchase will allow PETA to attend Kroger’s annual meetings, submit shareholder resolutions, and pressure executives from the inside to reconsider Harris Teeter’s ties to Plainville Farms.
PETA’s undercover investigation found that workers at Plainville Farms kicked and stomped on turkeys, including those who were sick, injured, and unable to walk. They tried and failed to break turkeys’ necks and left them to convulse and die in agony. Instead of stopping this abuse, a supervisor kicked the birds as well and berated PETA’s investigator for not doing the same. Workers threw hens at one another as though it were a game. One worker pretended to masturbate with a dying bird, and another sat on and pretended to rape a different bird.
“Harris Teeter is still selling turkeys from a supplier whose workers abused injured birds for fun,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA wants Kroger’s top brass to rethink its ties to Plainville Farms and is appealing to everyone who’s against cruelty to animals to prevent more abuse by eating vegan.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—points out that Whole Foods has already pulled Plainville Farms products from its shelves, and Harris Teeter should waste no time in following suit.
For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
