Quince Removes False Humane Claims Following Cease and Desist From PETA
For Immediate Release:
September 1, 2023
Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382
Following PETA’s demand that Quince stop falsely advertising its cashmere products as “non-harmful” to animals and its alpaca wool products as posing “no harm” to animals, the company has removed the misleading claims from its website. The demand came in the wake of a new PETA Asia investigation into cashmere farms, which revealed that workers in the industry violently tear out screaming goats’ hair with sharp metal combs, and a PETA investigation into an alpaca farm where industry workers slam the animals onto tables and shear them so recklessly that they’re often left with gaping wounds.
An image from PETA Asia’s investigation into cashmere farms
“By removing these false claims, Quince acknowledged that goats and alpacas are always harmed when used for its clothing,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Now the company must stop harming them by never selling products that involve cruelty to animals and instead switch to selling items made of luxurious animal-free materials.”
The just-released investigation into 12 cashmere industry operations in Mongolia—the second-largest cashmere producer in the world and where Quince gets its cashmere—shows workers tying goats’ legs together, violently pinning the animals down, and tearing out their hair in a process that can take up to an hour. Once the adult goats were no longer considered profitable, they were sent to slaughter. Workers hit them over the head with a hammer and slit their throats, leaving them to twitch in agony for over four minutes as they bled out. An earlier PETA exposé of the cashmere industry in China—the world’s top cashmere exporter—and Mongolia also documented that goats screamed in pain as workers tore out their hair before slitting their throats.
PETA investigators at the world’s largest privately owned alpaca farm, which is in Peru—the source country for Quince’s alpaca wool—observed workers hitting the animals and crudely sewing up the deep wounds caused by shearing.
Earlier this year, retailer Naadam removed similar false claims about its cashmere from its marketing less than one hour after receiving a cease and desist letter from PETA.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
