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The lawsuit alleges that Tillamook misrepresents where their products come from in their “Dairy Done Right” and “Goodbye Big Food” marketing campaigns, distancing themselves from the realities of large-scale dairy production while charging a higher price. #HumaneWashing
“This case is on behalf of all of the folks who were paying a price premium for these allegedly small-scale-produced products when in fact they’re very mass-produced,” said Amanda Howell, an attorney at Animal Legal Defense Fund, one of the litigators in the case. Read more here. In a separate development, one of the two current lawsuits against Alexandre cleared its first legal hurdle on Friday when a Humboldt County Superior Court judge ruled to allow a cruelty lawsuit to proceed against Alexandre.
Consumers who purchase milk from companies like Alexandre (and Whole Foods,) thinking they are supporting good animal welfare, are being deceived while animals continue to suffer. While Alexandre now appears to be the subject of increased monitoring, this case highlights the systematic failure of certification programs to ensure compliance with organic and animal welfare standards. Although Alexandre has been exposed for its egregious practices, this is not a case of one bad actor. For example, as part of the investigation, Alexandre supplied the NOP with the past results of the company’s certification inspections. During the period in question, Alexandre passed inspections by multiple certification programs, including the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Certified Humane, the National Dairy FARM Program, Organic Trust Plus, and Validus.24 None of these programs identified animal welfare concerns that rose to the level of an inspection failure or noncompliance finding, allowing Alexandre to continue its mistreatment of cows, unchecked. Read more from Farm Forward here. The Humane Hoax Project will host a panel of experts on July 19th who will examine the current crisis, navigate the political turmoil, and discuss the effects on farmed animals and the food industry. Mark your calendars and register for free here.
Undercover Investigation by Direct Action Everywhere of Meyenberg's Vera Goat dairy in Central California shows not only animal cruelty and disease but serious public health and environmental issues. Even though this supplier has been cited by the regional water quality control board as far back as 2013 the company continues to commit violations. Read more about the investigation from DxE here.Humane Farm Animal Care and the Global Animal Partnership stamp it “humane” “animal welfare certified.” In addition to the “humane” labels, one of the prime selling points of Farmer Focus chicken flesh is a “Farm ID” code on the package that claims to direct customers to the farm the (slaughtered) bird came from. According to the whistleblower, Farmer Focus “knowingly defraud[s]” consumers by “consistently and knowingly” placing the incorrect farm ID on its products. Read more in this exposé by PETA.
“I don’t want to see any more.” That’s one grocery shopper’s reaction to footage that exposes practices allowed at the farms and slaughterhouses behind those “animal welfare certified” labels found at Whole Foods. PETA’s new video spares viewers from the graphic imagery, but shows Whole Foods customers wincing, turning away, and refusing to look as they’re shown shots of terrified pigs crammed into filthy sheds, injured and dying chickens, workers forcibly impregnating cows, and other horrors. See more about the campaign from PETA here.
The Global Animal Partnership allows meat, egg, and dairy companies to slap misleading “animal welfare certified” labels on their “products”—even though multiple investigations from different groups over many years have documented widespread and systemic cruelty and suffering at many of the certified facilities. The new civil case alleges that Alexandre and Certified Humane falsely represented Alexandre products as “humane” while Alexandre engaged in shocking and widespread acts of animal cruelty. For example, Farm Forward’s investigation found that Alexandre staff poured salt into the eyes of hundreds of cows, sawed off the horns of more than 800 cows through tissue laced with nerves without any pain management, cut off a cow’s teat with an unsanitized pocketknife, dragged a cow who was unable to walk across concrete, for years provided no routine veterinary or hoof care management, and transported sick, injured, and lame cows to auction rather than treating or euthanizing them. More information about the Farm Forward lawsuit here. Read more about the humane dairy industry here.
Conscientious consumers who don’t want to harm animals or support animal cruelty are left to decipher an array of deceptive marketing claims and can end up buying products that don’t align with their values. Read more from IDA here.
Third-party certifications and programs that claim to ensure humane treatment — such as Humane Certified, Animal Welfare Approved, American Humane, ASPCA Shop with Your Heart, Better Chicken Commitment, and Global Animal Partnership (G.A.P.) Animal Welfare Certified — lack consistent oversight, inspections are rare and pre-announced, and there is minimal enforcement, if at all. Air pollution from animal farms is linked to almost eight times more premature deaths than coal-fired power plants, a 2021 study from Johns Hopkins University found. Other research has found that living near a factory farm is positively associated with risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia, and people who live near them report higher rates of headaches, depression, anger, and respiratory symptoms, such as asthma.
The mega factory farm is the inevitable consequence of decades of federal and state agricultural policy that has incentivized growth at all costs, with few guardrails in place to protect the people who live near them, like Carolyn Bittner, many of whom feel their health and quality of life has been sacrificed for corporate profit and cheap meat, milk, and eggs. Read more here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/395967/iowa-factory-farm-pollution-sacrifice-state Processing Meat is a biweekly newsletter written by Kenny Torrella and Marina Bolotnikova that analyzes meat and dairy production’s immense impact on human and animal lives. Check out more of their work on animal welfare here. Global Animal Partnership (G.A.P.) labels proclaim that animal body parts like hamburger and chicken breasts—as well as dairy and eggs—can be trusted to have come from sources with high “animal welfare” standards. But, as PETA (and others) investigations of G.A.P.-certified farms repeatedly show, the labels are a clever marketing ploy designed to hoodwink people who care about animals into thinking they’re doing the right thing, when they are actually paying to prop up factory farms where animals suffer incredible pain and misery. This is HumaneWashing.
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