MFA’s latest investigation into Iowa Select Farms, the largest pork producer in Iowa and fourth-largest in the nation, has garnered tons of mainstream media attention and raised awareness among millions of people about how the majority of pigs are raised and killed for food in the United States.
From national and international media juggernauts to local print, TV and radio stations across the country, here is a quick roundup of some of that coverage:
Print
- Could a Barbaric Pig-Handling Video Hurt Major Grocery Chains? – TIME Magazine
- Undercover Video Gives the Dirt on Pigs in Factory Farms – Wall Street Journal
- Animal Rights Group Releases Gruesome Undercover Footage – Huffington Post
- Animal welfare group pressures grocers with videos – Associated Press
- Piglets thrown across a room and castrated without painkillers – Daily Mail
- Video Footage Exposes Animal Abuse in US Pork Factory – International Business Times
- More Documented Abuse of Iowa Animals – Food Safety News
- Costco stops buying pork from farm shown in undercover video – Seattle Times
- Supplier suspends purchases from Iowa Select Farms – Chicago Tribune
- Animal welfare group uses undercover video to pressure grocers to stop buying from hog farm – Washington Post
- Kroger acts after hog-farm video – Columbus Dispatch
- Video maker: Hog confinement experience ‘will haunt me’ – Des Moines Register
- This Little Piggie Gets Tortured – Cincinnati CityBeat
Television
- Iowa Pig Farm Filmed, Accused of Animal Abuse – ABC News
- Meat from abused animals could show up on your dinner table – WOIO Cleveland
- Animal Welfare Group Pressures Kroger With Abuse Videos – WLWT
- Cincinnati Group Said Undercover Video Shows Animal Abuse – KCCI Des Moines
- Video Exposes Possible Abuse At Pork Supplier – 10TV Columbus
- Costco severs ties with Iowa farm accused of pig abuse – King5 Seattle
- Video claims to show animal abuse at pig farm – WGN TV
- Chicago Activists Call For Companies To End Business With Iowa Pig Farm – KTVU San Francisc
- Safeway, Kroger reject pork from farm under investigation – KOMO News Seattle
- Animal rights group uses hidden camera to uncover claims of abuse and cruelty at Iowa hog confinement – WHO TV Des Moines
- Undercover activist exposes pork producer’s practices – ABC7 San Francisco
While all of the violence documented at Iowa Select, including management training workers to throw piglets across the room before slicing into their sensitive skin and ripping out their testicles with their fingers, is unconscionably cruel and unnecessary, subjecting intelligent and social animals to a lifetime of confinement in narrow metal gestation crates so small they are unable to turn around or lie down comfortably for nearly their entire lives is perhaps the cruelest form of institutionalized animal abuse in existence.
Sadly, grocery giants Kroger, Costco, Safeway, and Hy-Vee condone confining animals in crates barely larger than their bodies by selling pork from producers who use gestation crates – including Iowa Select Farms. These corporations have both the power and ethical responsibility to ensure the products in their stores come from producers that have committed to ending the cruelest factory farming practices. Please take a moment to contact these grocery chains and urge them to take a stand against animal abuse by requiring their pork suppliers to phase out gestation crates.
As MFA works to expose and end the exploitation of animals at the hands of the meat, egg and dairy industries, consumers still hold the greatest power of all to prevent needless suffering of farmed animals by adopting a healthy and humane vegan diet. Visit ChooseVeg.com for great-tasting recipes and helpful tips for making the transition to a vegan lifestyle.
