MOD Pizza—a company with no meaningful animal welfare policies in place—has opened its first location in Canada. In response, 20 passionate Canadian celebrities have taken a stand against animal cruelty and added their names to a public letter addressed to the company’s CEO, Scott Svenson.
MOD Pizza has over 400 locations across the United States and allows horrific abuse of chickens in its supply chain. At factory farms, chickens are packed into dark, waste-filled warehouses. They are commonly bred to grow so large so quickly that many suffer organ failure, heart attacks, and crippling leg deformities, often becoming immobilized in their own waste. Many even die before they reach slaughter weight.
Mercy For Animals has repeatedly urged MOD Pizza to join competitors Blaze Pizza, Chipotle, Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Burger King, and Papa John’s in adopting the Better Chicken Commitment, a set of standards that will meaningfully improve chicken welfare in each company’s supply chain. So far, MOD Pizza has failed to do so.
The 20 celebrities who have added their names to the public letter are Jason Priestley, Sarah Jeffery, Brett Dier, Tricia Helfer, Jake Epstein, Cassie Steele, Serinda Swan, Cody Kearsley, Tara Strong, Nick Bateman, Sarah Grey, Nolan Gerard Funk, Katherine Ramdeen, Jayde Nicole, André Dae Kim, Lyle Lettau, Nikki Gould, Shanice Banton, Craig Arnold, and Georges Laraque.
The letter reads in part:
As proud Canadians, we were saddened to learn that MOD Pizza—a company that hasn’t yet adopted the Better Chicken Commitment—has expanded to our country. Without such a policy, your suppliers are permitted to pack chickens into dark, crowded, waste-filled warehouses; breed them to grow so unnaturally fast that they often suffer constant pain; and slit their throats, often while the birds are still conscious. As the CEO of MOD Pizza, you have the power to ban this unspeakable cruelty.
While MOD Pizza markets itself as a company that cares, it has fallen behind more than 200 others that have signed on to the Better Chicken Commitment in recent months, including Popeyes Louisiana Chicken—one of the largest chicken fast-food chains, with thousands of locations across the United States and Canada!
The letter addresses MOD Pizza CEO Scott Svenson directly:
Mr. Svenson, please do the right thing and show consumers that MOD Pizza truly does care about animal ethics as you suggest on your website. As fellow advocates for social change, we urge you to adopt the Better Chicken Commitment and add MOD Pizza to the ranks of forward-thinking restaurant chains that recognize our obligation to protect animals from the worst cruelty, including animals raised for food.
You can join the movement against cruelty! Head over to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and ask MOD Pizza to join more than 200 other brands in agreeing to ban some of the worst factory farming practices.
And you can continue the fight to end factory farming with Mercy For Animals and thousands of other animal advocates by becoming a Hen Hero today.
Click here to see the full letter.