☆ Warning ✯ the video above is not for the faint of heart. It depicts serious animal abuse at a large New Mexico dairy farm ☆ The animal rights group Mercy for Animals recently uncovered serious animal abuse at a dairy farm that supplies milk for cheese to several major pizza chains. Needless to say, pizzas from Domino’s and Pizza Hut have been topped with animal abuse. Winchester Dairy in New Mexico supplies milk for the mozzarella cheese that tops pizzas from large chains like Domino’s and Pizza Hut. Leprino Foods – the cheese company/middleman between Winchester Dairy and these pizza chains – has stopped using Winchester milk for now. Winchester Dairy also fired the workers in question. What none of the companies involved have done, though, is take steps to PREVENT this sort of ANIMAL ABUSE in the future. The reaction from the pizza companies who ultimately sell these products to consumers has been less than heartening. The statement from Domino’s is downright misleading: “The individual family dairy farms throughout the country – 47,000 of them – and the brands who buy and sell cheese are being painted in a horrible light due to the horrendous acts of a small group of individuals.” Calling large dairies like Winchester Dairy “family farms” sounds nice, but the factory farms that produce milk for large-scale food operations are not the idyllic situations that you’d probably picture. There are no happy cows at these large operations, and thanks to ag-gag legislation (a variety of anti-whistleblower laws) in many states, undercover investigators like the ones at Mercy for Animals can even face criminal charges for exposing abuse. When dairy companies push to make their industry less transparent, they are clearly not putting animal welfare is at the top of their to do list. They just do not want to get found out. The animal agriculture industry in New Mexico – home of Winchester Dairy – pushed for ag-gag legislation in 2013, but it was fortunately shot down. The best way to get these companies to truly take animal welfare seriously is to hit them where it hurts. Show Domino’s and Pizza Hut that you care about animals, they will have to take a harder line with suppliers all the way up the chain. Winchester Dairy’s and Leprino Food’s reactions to this case of animal abuse is just that: a reaction. Proactivity is what we need to see from these companies.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:06:11 +0000
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