KFC Investigation Unearths Shocking Abuse

From the UK’s Sunday Mirror, August 31, 2003:

Journalist Martin Coutts gives the details of a lengthy undercover investigation conducted into a Premier Foods chicken farm, one of the UK’s largest chicken producers and known KFC supplier. The investigators, working in conjunction with an undercover team from Hillside Animal Sanctuary, shot extensive video footage of the conditions on this factory farm. Here are some descriptions of the cruelty they uncovered:

• “There are more than 36,000 chickens here in huge windowless sheds. The conditions they have to endure during their short, brutal lives are so horrific it defies belief.”
• “Some birds are so lame and deformed they can only drag themselves to the food and water troughs by their wings. Others stand motionless, too dazed or dying to move.”
• “In one shed where chickens had been taken away for slaughter there were dozens of carcasses littering the floor. In another – where scores of birds had died – their remains were being picked over by other chickens.”
• “One investigator who shot a secret film there said: ‘I have investigated animal welfare for many years, but this easily ranks amongst some of the worst cruelty I have seen.’” KFC claims to have animal welfare standards in place which cover “all chicken[s] intended to be sold at KFC,” but such words are meaningless when they allow hideous abuses to take place. And Premier Foods won the “KFC Supplier of the Year Award” in January of 2001. If this level of abuse represents the best of what KFC suppliers have to offer, imagine what other farms allow!

PETA is calling on KFC to immediately adopt PETA’s recommended animal welfare guidelines internationally. PETA’s guidelines have been approved by members of KFC’s own animal welfare advisory panel and represent the most up-to-date studies and research into animal welfare. Click here to read more about PETA’s recommendations to KFC.

Click here to read the Sunday Mirror story about the investigation.

KFC’s Poor Chicks Leave a Bad Taste