Members of the prestigious Wharton Club of DC had to walk through picket lines last Friday if they were attending a talk about Walmart’s “sustainability initiatives” given by the company’s director of sustainability, Katherine Neebe.
MFA staged an eye-catching demonstration that featured our supporters wielding signs declaring, “Walmart Tortures Animals” and bearing the images of abused pigs locked in filthy gestation crates.
The protest confronted Neebe over Walmart’s continued sourcing of pork from factory farms that confine sows in narrow cages so small the sows cannot even turn around — a cruel practice banned in many states and the subject of phaseouts by all of Walmart’s competitors.
Gestation stalls are so cruel that they have been banned in nine U.S. states and the entire European Union, and have been denounced by leading animal welfare experts, including Dr. Temple Grandin. Dozens of food industry leaders, including Costco, Kroger, Safeway, McDonald’s, and Burger King, have committed to phasing out the use of gestation crates in their supply chains.
It is reprehensible that Katherine Neebe and Walmart would lecture young business leaders about sustainability while continuing to support such horrible cruelty to animals.
Walmart supports blatant animal abuse by buying pork from suppliers that condemn intelligent and social animals to a lifetime of misery and deprivation in crates where they can’t even turn around, walk, lie down comfortably, or engage in other natural behaviors. The moment is now for Walmart to get with the times and follow the lead of all its major competitors. The only sustainable and socially responsible choice is to require the company’s pork suppliers to phase out cruel cages for mother pigs.
To take action and tell Walmart to do the right thing, visit WalmartCruelty.com today and sign our petition.
