PETA to Alert Shareholders to Hormel’s Slaughter Violations
For Immediate Release:
January 24, 2022
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
“Given that Jennie-O has a track record of violations and that producing vegan meats eliminates the risk of slaughterhouse violations, what is Hormel doing to hasten the transition to producing only vegan foods?” That’s the question a PETA representative will ask the company’s executives at Hormel’s virtual annual meeting tomorrow.
PETA recently obtained U.S. Department of Agriculture documents from April through July 2021 revealing numerous slaughter violations at the Melrose turkey slaughterhouse operated by Hormel subsidiary Jennie-O. On one day, 514 turkeys were dead on arrival, which a report describes as an “on-going concern.” On another day, on the conveyor belt headed toward the carbon dioxide gas chamber, two cages had a layer of dead turkeys on the bottom. And on numerous days, turkeys exhibited signs of heat stress but weren’t provided with the fans or foggers required to cool them down, even as temperatures climbed as high as 93 degrees.
PETA notes that Hormel already offers a vegan line, Happy Little Plants—and that the demand for vegan meats has continued to rise, with the global vegan meat market expected to top $13 billion by 2026.
“The more consumers learn how gentle birds suffer from and die of heatstroke even before they face the slaughterhouse knife, the more they’re eager to go vegan,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is urging Hormel to get out of the animal-killing business and switch entirely to making the delicious vegan meats that today’s kind shoppers want.”
Early in the pandemic, PETA purchased stock in Hormel along with stock in Tyson, Sanderson Farms, Maple Leaf Foods, Kraft Heinz (parent company of Oscar Mayer), and Chinese-owned WH Group (owner of Smithfield Foods)—all with the aim of urging them to switch to producing vegan meats.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
