WHEREAS: Whole Foods has long marketed its meat and other animal-derived products as coming from animals who
enjoy the highest standards of animal welfare. On its website, the company claims the following:
• “Our baseline requirements for our Meat department are stronger than most anywhere. If it doesn’t meet our standards,
we won’t sell it.”
• “Animal producers must meet our standards for how the animals are raised, transported and slaughtered.”
• “A traceable audit system is required that tracks animals from birth to slaughter.”
Despite such proclamations, Whole Foods has a history of selling animal-derived products from suppliers implicated in an
array of atrocities.
At Whole Foods’ self-proclaimed supplier of “happy meat,” Sweet Stem Farm, sick and injured pigs languished for weeks
without veterinary care, several with grotesque and bloody rectal prolapses. Chickens at Nellie’s Free Range Eggs were
crammed together so tightly that visitors found it difficult to avoid stepping on them. The tips of these birds’ beaks had
been cut off to prevent stress-induced cannibalism. Dead and languishing birds were trapped in feces up to half a foot deep
at Diestel Turkey Ranch and Petaluma Egg Farm.
Most recently, Pennsylvania State Police filed 141 cruelty charges—including six felonies—against 12 former workers at
Plainville Farms, a company that claims to produce “humane” turkey in a “stress-free environment.” The charges stemmed
from PETA’s 2021 investigation into the former Whole Foods supplier. Horrifying video showed workers repeatedly and
viciously kicking and stomping on turkeys on a nightly basis. A supervisor himself kicked turkeys and berated PETA’s
investigator for refusing to take part in the abuse. Birds convulsed in agony after workers tried but failed to break their
necks. Every night, dead and dying turkeys littered concrete barn floors. Workers clubbed turkeys with a heavy iron bar and
stood on their heads. They violently shook and choked terrified turkeys. Two workers were recorded mimicking masturbation
and rape with injured and dying birds.
The cruelty uncovered was so severe that it resulted in the most charges and defendants in any case of cruelty to factoryfarmed animals in U.S. history.
Whole Foods’ history of selling meat and other animal-derived products from suppliers in blatant violation of its animal
welfare standards jeopardizes our company’s reputation. It also presents risk to the company in light of the public’s increasing
desire to pay more for meat, eggs, and dairy advertised to be from animals who were treated humanely. Consequently, it
is vital that our company issue a report to shareholders transparently evaluating its “highest standards of animal welfare” and
“audit system” that have failed to prevent cruelty in the company’s supply chain.