Boycott KFC!!! (NYTimes article)

KFC Supplier Accused of Animal Cruelty

[size=-1]By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.[/size]

Published: July 20, 2004



n animal rights group involved in a long legal dispute with Kentucky Fried Chicken about the treatment of the 700 million chickens it buys each year is to release a videotape today showing slaughterhouse workers for one supplier jumping up and down on live chickens, drop-kicking them like footballs and slamming them into walls, apparently for fun.

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After officials of the KFC Corporation saw the videotape yesterday, they said they would seek dismissal of the workers, inspect the slaughterhouse more often and end their relationship if the cruelty was repeated. The company that owns the slaughterhouse, the Pilgrim's Pride Corporation, the country's second-largest poultry processor, said it was "appalled" by the tape.

Animal rights groups have long complained that sheer malicious behavior - on top of the expected confinement and bloodletting - goes on in slaughter plants, but this is the first time such graphic proof has been produced. The tape was taken surreptitiously by an investigator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who worked from October 2003 to May 2004 at a Pilgrim's Pride plant in Moorefield, W.Va., that won KFC's "Supplier of the Year" award in 1997.

KFC and its parent, Yum Brands, have repeatedly committed themselves to a promise that all suppliers would treat animals humanely. Yesterday, a spokeswoman for KFC said the company "wouldn't tolerate the type of behavior in the video."

KFC "will require that the employee or employees responsible be terminated," said Bonnie Warschauer, director of public relations, and further violations will "result in termination of our relationship."

Prominent veterinarians, including those on the company's animal welfare advisory board, called for shutting the plant and dismissing or prosecuting its managers. Dr. Ian J. H. Duncan, an animal and poultry science professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who is a KFC adviser, said the tape "contains some of the worst scenes of animal cruelty that I have ever witnessed."

A Pilgrim's Pride spokesman said the company had an anonymous report about poultry mistreatment at the plant in April and had made it clear to its workers that "any such behavior would result in immediate termination." In light of the tape, the company said, it will reopen its investigation.

The tape includes loud music the workers listen to, the screeching of the birds and the sound of each hitting the wall. When released, it will be on a Web site of the animal-rights group, which is known as PETA, at kentuckyfriedcruelty.com.

The undercover investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation and still does undercover work for the group, said in a telephone interview that he saw "hundreds" of acts of cruelty, including workers tearing beaks off, ripping a bird's head off to write graffiti in blood, spitting tobacco juice into birds' mouths, plucking feathers to "make it snow," suffocating a chicken by tying a latex glove over its head, and squeezing birds like water balloons to spray feces over other birds.

He said the behavior was "to alleviate boredom or vent frustrations," especially when so many birds were coming in that they would have to work late.

On April 6, one day he filmed, workers made a game of throwing chickens against a wall; 114 were thrown in seven minutes. A supervisor walking past the pile of birds on the floor said, "Hold your fire," and, once out of the way, told the crew to "carry on."

On another day, he said, the supervisor told the crew to kill correctly because inspectors were visiting.

To document cruelty and position his tiny camera, he said, he spent eight months working in the "hang pen," where workers attach newly arrived chickens by their feet to a conveyor that carries them upside-down through an electrified "stun bath" and then into the whirling blades of the throat-cutting machine.

KFC says all its suppliers train their workers in animal welfare, but the investigator said Pilgrim's Pride had nothing on the topic in its orientation manual and the only instruction he received was after five months, and then only in how to wring a chicken's neck by hand. The Web site of Pilgrim's Pride does not note any animal welfare policy.

Last year, PETA sued Kentucky Fried Chicken and called for a boycott, demanding that it require its suppliers to give chickens more room in factory barns, stop forcing growth so rapid that it cripples birds, and to gas birds before hanging them so they feel no pain.

The group has won similar concessions from Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's.

Yum Brands did not do as PETA requested, but its KFC Web site says the company is "committed to the humane treatment of animals." It describes steps taken to assure such treatment, including creating an advisory council and promising to "only deal with suppliers who provide an environment that is free from cruelty, abuse and neglect."

Dr. Temple Grandin, a well-known veterinary scientist who designs plants for humane slaughter, called the behavior shown on the videotape "absolutely atrocious."

Dr. Grandin is on KFC's animal welfare advisory board, but said PETA had not told her when it sent her the tape this month where it had been taken. "They need to fire the plant manager," she said.

Both Ms. Warschauer of KFC and a spokesman for Pilgrim's Pride said they would ask Dr. Grandin to visit the plant.

PETA said it planned to ask a West Virginia prosecutor to prosecute plant employees and managers under state laws that make torture or malicious killing of animals a felony. It has also written to KFC and Pilgrim's Pride, asking them to use gas to knock the animals out before they are killed and to mount video cameras to forestall employee cruelty.

The PETA investigator said he would testify, calling it "the right thing to do."

Several American and British veterinary experts to whom PETA sent the videotape expressed disgust.

"I have visited many poultry slaughterhouses but I have never seen cruelty to chickens to the extent shown in this video," said Dr. Donald M. Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University and chairman of the European Union's animal welfare scientific committee. "It would be grounds for a successful prosecution for cruelty to animals in most countries."

 

Yeah, Popeye's is better anyway.

 

I love my kfc cold, I also learned that getting high and eating kfc is not recommended. I have caught my self a number of times eating the bones. Hmm drop kicking chickens against the wall? Is that wrong or something? How else do you tenderize them?

 

Nah, getting high and eating those buttery soft KFC biscuits is definitely the way to go.

 

KFC rules!

 

Apparently not!

 

polar bears are the most mallicious animals in the world. they've tracked humans for miles just to kill them. NUKE THE BEARS!!!

 

A Kfc just opened in my town....I never touch anyfast food places though.

 

the colonel was cool though, colonel sanders

 

the colonel was cool though, colonel Snaders


Almost died several times, yet didn't want to pay for a doctor, did the stitching himself......

yep, the Colonel was the man

 

Anyone have anything about this article thats not tied to PETA? I don't trust anything that comes out of those scumbags.

But chicken should be treated with a fair amount of respect before I eat it.

 

Hmm their mac and cheese is good, chicken eh could care less.

 

you guys are missing the point...Colonel Sanders should be respected, even if the chickens aren't.

It'snot his fault so leave him out of it..

GOD!!!

 

Besides, he's a Colonel. Salute his ass, dammit!

 

EWWWW!\


Interesting U mentioned this on this posts
I vow to never go to a KFC again. They had alot of guys working in there last night that really smelled bad. Like they did not wash anything in over 30 days!!!
I was in there returning food from a previous nite, last nite and asked for a full refund because there chicken was really really fatty and uncooked. The rest of their food sucked too! This article and my experience is strongly pushing me into becoming a vegetarian again! I hate KFC! they are so lousy and "ghetto."

 

If a person, who is very handsome or beautiful has a finger that is all bent, deformed and defaced, does this finger then make the same person ugly and unpleasant to look at?

Out of all the KFC restaurants in the world, you were in one that had really bad smelly guys working in it, that half-cooked their chicken which left it tasting real fatty, yet you want to hate the whole of KFC for it?

Doesn't make much sense or sound logical to me.

I saw this thread first time yesterday. So yesterday I wrote to one of the employees at the advertising agency that is the "agency of record" for KFC Point-of-Purchase and Print regarding the film clip I found at PETA. This morning I find his reply ...

His response was ... "KFC complains because that particular place supplies only a tiny amount of their chickens and it is implied that KFC owns Pilgrims Pride when in fact they are only a small customer. It's the same place that Kroger buys their chickens from but nobody is marching in front of Kroger. Next week there's going to be a big protest march at YUM headquarters on Gardiner Lane to protest low wages and poor treatment of tomato pickers in Florida because Taco Bell buys tomatoes from there. Again, Taco Bell is not the only one to buy but the group thinks they have influence.

Personally it does seem unfair however ... . They [big corporations] are citizens of this big world we share and have some responsibility. Though they may not always be to blame for certain problems if they could use their influence to help the plight of others they certainly should."

So what I see here is the same thing happening ... that is, one small insignificant part has spoiled the whole, that is, KFC's (metaphorically speaking) little finger is all crooked and disfigured so that makes the whole body ugly and unpleasant to look at even though everyone first thought how wonderful they were.

I have an interesting thought here ... what if ...

What if one small corporation who raises and sells chickens was refused their goods by KFC. So, what if, this small corporation decided to take it out on KFC by creating scams and hoaxes and turning all this into a PETA affair because of PETA's ability to bring to the publics eye cruelty to animals?

So now I'm wondering, after reading the response from the person I wrote at the ad agency, why is no one picketing and calling PETA on Kroger? After all, Kroger is also buying chickens from Pilgrims Pride !!!

And I'm also wondering, why don't you boycott Kroger for having employees who smell bad, or say you will stop eating altogether because Kroger sells milk, meat, vegetables and other staples ???

Punish the whole body for the appearance of one finger !!!

Darrell

PS: I'm not just singling you out Mystic Echo. You just happened to make the right statement for the right response. This is for everyone responding to this thread, not withstanding the individual who started it ...

 

I think Mike Ditka might have a bone or two to pick with you if you tried!

 

I dislike KFC because 1) They are corporate bastards

 

2) They market shit to customers and potential customers and try to pass it off as ok food to consume- which is a lie!!! And yes, to the poster above me who is probably a KFC supporter or secret official....the KFC I was in was that bad-

 

Not really a supporter per-se ... I happen to be vegetarian. I was driving by a KFC the other day with a friend and saw a bunch of protesters out in front of KFC, marching around in circles waving their picket/protest banners. I was just going to drive on past and not say a thing ... honest I was ... until I saw a sign that said they "Boil Their Chickens Alive".

That was the straw that broke this camels back. I stopped the car, got out and shouted across the street ... LIARS !!! ... LIARS EVERY ONE OF YOU ... YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES ... I DON'T EVEN EAT MEAT, BUT YOUR JUST PLAIN OUTRIGHT LYING !!! Then got back in the car and drove off ...

Secret official ... I hardly think that to be true ... I'm just one of the Forum moderators ... Philosophy and Religion Forum. But whenever I see someone saying crap like PETA did about KFC, it just gets under my skin. Did you pay close attention to the video? In one or two places, the people looked right at the camera ... staged if you ask me. But then ... you didn't ... !!!

Darrell