‘Pandemic Pig’ to Descend on Shuttered Smithfield Slaughterhouse

With 900 COVID-19 Cases Linked to Local Slaughterhouse, PETA Will Urge Top Meat Producer to Go Vegan

For Immediate Release:
April 27, 2020

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

Because 900 COVID-19 cases have been tied to the Smithfield Foods, Inc., pig slaughterhouse in Sioux Falls that temporarily shuttered on April 15, PETA’s “Pandemic Pig” will lead animal activists once again in a protest, while observing social-distancing practices, outside the slaughterhouse. Their message? That Smithfield should get ahead of the curve and make the transition to producing exclusively plant-based pork and other vegan meats—or keep its filthy and dangerous slaughterhouses shut permanently.

When:    Tuesday, April 28, 12 noon

Where:    Smithfield Foods, Inc., slaughterhouse, 1400 N. Weber Ave. (at the intersection with E. Rice Street), Sioux Falls

“Another pandemic is inevitable if we fail to learn from this one,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Smithfield to recognize the urgency facing all of us and embrace its vegan side—since it’s already producing plant-based sausage and other faux meats—by reinventing itself as a producer of only healthy and 100% humane vegan meat.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that the novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese “wet market,” where live and dead animals are sold for human consumption. Health authorities confirm that influenza viruses and coronaviruses are zoonotic (transmissible from other animals to humans). Previous influenza viruses originated in pigs and chickens.

PETA opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.