People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the Harrisonburg poultry plant Farmer Focus for allegations of inhumane treatment of chickens, and mislabeling products. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
Farmer Focus, formerly known as Shenandoah Valley Organic, processes and sells chicken raised at more than 120 family-owned farms throughout the valley. Their products are certified "humane" by Humane Farm Animal Care and Global Animal Partnership. Those are nonprofits that use third-party inspectors to ensure that farms meet standards such as giving animals access to outdoor areas with forage, and clean shelters with around a square foot of space per bird.
However, PETA wrote to the FTC in May, alleging that the claims amount to false advertising.
COLIN HENSTOCK: If these whistleblower allegations are true, there's certainly nothing humane about this.
Colin Henstock is PETA's associate director of project strategy. He says a whistleblower provided an injury tally sheet showing high numbers of broken limbs and other injuries on birds processed by Farmer Focus. Photos shared with WMRA also show examples of broken wings and bruised legs on carcasses. Henstock would not confirm whether or not this person was an employee at the facility.
HENSTOCK: An industry insider told us that many of the chickens killed at the Harrisonburg slaughterhouse suffered unimaginably slow and painful deaths and were injured during catching on the farms at rates that are far beyond what the chicken industry itself considers acceptable.
Farmer Focus declined to do an interview for this story.
On the tally sheet that PETA claims is an internal audit document from Farmer Focus, three reviews of 500 birds on the processing line each found between 30 and 45 with broken or disjointed wings. PETA described this injury rate in their letter to the FTC as "three times higher than those listed as acceptable by the National Chicken Council."
Certain details including the date on the tally sheet were redacted. PETA told WMRA that was to avoid potentially identifying the whistleblower.
The National Chicken Council is a trade association for the broiler, or meat chicken, industry. They provide farmers and processors with an "Animal Welfare Guidelines and Audit Checklist" that includes scales for contracted auditors to rate companies on certain metrics. The three levels for wing injuries, from best to worst, are 15 or fewer broken or dislocated wings per 500 birds, 16-20, and more than 20. The council did not respond to WMRA's interview requests.
PETA also provided a photo to WMRA of chicken breast meat that appears to have a greenish hue in the tender area. Henstock said that's an indication the birds were flapping their wings in overstressed conditions.
HENSTOCK: That creates the condition called deep pectoral myopathy, which is where the muscle, their pectoral muscle essentially breaks down, and when those chickens are slaughtered, that flesh is green and essentially atrophied and dead.
The Merck Veterinary Manual states that deep pectoral myopathy is caused by periods of prolonged wing flapping, and can be decreased by the careful handling of birds and selective breeding, as the condition also has a genetic component.
PETA claims that the company is misleading customers another way, too. Each Farmer Focus product is labelled with a code that is meant to correspond with the specific farmer who raised that chicken.
HENSTOCK: But the whistleblower said that consumers are being "defrauded," and that the company consistently and knowingly places the incorrect farm ID on its products, and can't trace all the products back to the correct farm.
PETA’s campaign against meat processing facilities goes beyond specific companies, though.
HENSTOCK: The truth is that humane meat doesn't exist. … All that these certifications really do is mislead the public and humane-wash cruel companies and industries so that they can charge more for their products.
I asked Henstock if PETA would make that assertion to small family farms and homesteads that eat their own pasture-raised livestock.
HENSTOCK: At a base level of it, you're taking a sensitive, intelligent, living being who doesn't want to die and you're killing them at a fraction of their natural lifespan, and there's really no reason to do it when you can get nutritious, healthy, and humane vegan meals very easily these days.
So far, the organization has not heard back from the FTC.
