Over the past five years People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has become widely recognised as one of the most effective campaigning groups in the world. With over 750,000 members worldwide and a history of famous victories over McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King, in January 2003 PETA launched a campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).
PETA’s achievements to date
In September 2000 PETA halted its campaign against McDonald’s, a campaign that had involved 400 demonstrations over 11 months in more than 23 countries as well as hard-hitting advertisements and high profile celebrity involvement. McDonald’s had implemented an unprecedented range of animal welfare improvements. These changes were historic and almost immediately effective. Dr Temple Grandin, a universally respected farm animal-handling expert, stated in October 2000 that she had seen “more progress in the past six months than in [her] previous twenty years of working on [farmed animal] issues.”
In January 2001 PETA launched a campaign against Burger King, demanding that it follow the animal welfare policies recently adopted by McDonald’s. A six-month campaign involving more than 800 protests was halted when Burger King adopted the same standards as McDonald’s and went even further. Wendy’s was the next fast food chain to come into the sights of PETA. A campaign launched in July 2001 saw dozens of arrests of PETA activists protesting inside restaurants. In September 2001, Wendy’s adopted the same standards as Burger King. Campaigns against grocers Safeway, Kroger and Albertson’s, were equally successful.
Few campaigning organisations can have had such an impact in so short a space of time. While some in the industry claim that these changes were made regardless of PETA pressure, there seems little doubt that, as Washington PR expert Nick Nichols of Nichols-Dezenhall said in March 2002, “There are a lot of corporations appeasing these groups, hoping PETA will eat them last.” Knowing this history, senior KFC executives must have shifted uncomfortably in their boardroom seats when PETA declared a campaign against their company on January 6, 2003.
Chicken welfare issues
No KFC spokesperson was available for comment but its website states that, “KFC is committed to the well being and humane treatment of chickens and we require all of our suppliers to follow guidelines developed by us with leading experts on our Animal Welfare Advisory Council.”
During two years of negotiations before launching the campaign PETA tried to convince KFC that its suppliers do not treat chickens in a humane way. In a letter to KFC on September 7, 2001 PETA detailed its concerns regarding the treatment of chickens and demanded a series of changes. Those issues are many and varied and include the effects of breeding programmes, which produce chickens with upper bodies too large to be supported by their legs or organs, overcrowding, infrequent litter changing, routine mutilation and food and water deprivation. PETA also claims that slaughter techniques are inhumane, with many chickens being scalded for feather removal while still alive.
The failure of negotiations
The first shots of the campaign were fired on April 25, 2001 when PETA wrote to KFC to ask why it had done nothing to address any of these cruelties. This initiated two years of discussions between PETA and KFC. PETA’s Director of Vegan Outreach, Bruce Friedrich, describes the results of these discussions: “The only thing they did in all that time was to audit their US slaughterhouses for gratuitous cruelty. This has resulted in a small improvement in conditions for the 300 million or so chickens that are killed in the US each year, and we welcome that advance. But it is not enough. They have set up an animal welfare panel and accepted some of our recommendations on the make-up of that panel, but to be frank, they could have put they Pope on the panel but, if they refuse to follow the science on animal suffering, no progress will be made.”
In January 2003 PETA concluded that KFC had no intention to work with it to improve animal welfare and therefore launched the campaign against the company. To date PETA has held around 100 demonstrations against KFC and has produced a range of campaign material aimed at educating the public about the issues involved.
Claim and counter-claim
Unlike PETA’s most recent opponent Albertson’s, which caved in within a week of the organisation’s declaring a campaign against it, KFC appears to be ready for a fight. On January 7, KFC posted a press release dismissing PETA’s allegations.
In it, Dr Joanne Piltcha, Vice President of Research & Development, declared, “KFC is committed to the well-being and humane treatment of broiler chickens. Our Animal Welfare Council has established a set of quantifiable guidelines that have been implemented in our supplier processing facilities. The experts on our council have also reviewed several PETA proposals and determined that the majority of them are impractical and not based on sound science.”
Friedrich replies, “Interestingly, they removed this statement from their website once we pointed out that it is a bald-faced lie and that all of our recommendations have the support of the four people on their panel who care about animal welfare, and no one on their panel ever, to the panel, suggested that any of our proposals are impractical or scientifically unsound. They removed this from their January 7 press release, but didn't note that it had been taken out. They do not stand by this statement, as indicated by the fact that they took it down.”
In a later press release KFC quoted remarks made by Friedrich in which he appears to advocate violent action against the fast food industry, and reported that PETA has donated funds to the Earth Liberation Front, a group described by a former FBI Director as being responsible for terrorist acts.
Friedrich responds, “We did not give funds to a member of the ELF. The ELF is an illegal group that does illegal activities. We gave US$1500 out of our US$15 million annual budget, years ago, to help a person who was called before a grand jury that was investigating the ELF. He was not ever charged with anything, he was merely being questioned, and he was totally exonerated, as we assumed he would be. He has been doing legal protest for PETA for more than six years, always as a volunteer.”
On February 18, 2003 PETA called on local authorities to file charges against Tyson Foods based on a statement by former employee Virgil Butler in which he alleged routine cruelty and random sadism to chickens in the slaughterhouse at Tyson Foods. KFC's top supplier is Tyson Foods. It denies purchasing from that particular slaughterhouse in Grannis, Arkansas. PETA, however, claims that KFC buys from a processing plant that buys from that slaughterhouse and that KFC is attempting to deceive the public.
The art of war
PETA declared May 2003 the “Month of Action” against KFC. It promised demonstrations, newspaper letters and billboard posters all highlighting to consumers across the globe KFC’s alleged cruelty. KFC responded with an announcement on May 1 that it will adopt a series of guidelines for the handling and raising of poultry. These cover the training of supplier personnel and inspection of those supplier sites. Progress on this appears to be underway with the first inspection undertaken by Dr Temple Grandin and his team on May 21.
The guidelines also cover chicken welfare in areas such as climate, nutrition, hygiene, healthcare, space and handling. These guidelines fall some way short of the changes demanded by PETA, most notably in the fact that they make no reference to the humane slaughter of those animals.
On May 1 KFC asked the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Labour to assess PETA’s proposal for gas killing of chickens as preferable to the current process of often ineffective stunning that involves many chickens being scalded to death. PETA was unimpressed with non-specific pledges on handling and raising and with reviews on slaughter processes.
PETA was, however, impressed and encouraged by a meeting on May 7 between its President, Ingrid Newkirk, and KFC President Cheryl Bachelder. According to PETA, at that meeting KFC agreed to make key changes, including installing cameras in all 29 slaughterhouses by the end of 2004, adding mental and physical stimulation devices to all US chicken sheds and ensuring that all chickens are killed prior to scalding.
Animal welfare activists in the UK were pleased to read this headline in the UK’s Guardian newspaper on May 10: “Animal activists win on chicken welfare”. According to that article, KFC had caved in and PETA was planning to suspend its campaign for 60 days.
Celebrations proved to be premature. PETA claims that it had not promised to call off its campaign if KFC made these concessions and had merely written a letter to them offering to scale back certain aspects of the protest if it saw these promises being put into action. Dan Shannon, Vegan Outreach Coordinator at PETA, says that, “When KFC realised we weren’t going to call off the campaign, they reneged on their promises.” So, the “Month of Action” went ahead, although it seems as though KFC’s tactics did to some extent blunt its impact. While Shannon enthusiastically describes “dozens” of demonstrations that happened around the world in May, this falls some way short of the “thousands” that PETA had been predicting.
What lies ahead?
PETA is far from discouraged. Shannon is positive: “The campaign is working. We have succeeded in getting increased space in the sheds and a system of auditing which ought to weed out any sadistic treatment of animals. However, there is much still to be done. The cracks have started to show, and although we believe it’ll be a long campaign, we’re ready for that, and we’re confident that we’ll win.” That confidence is based not only on a conviction that the cause is just, but also on an admirable catalogue of past success.
Shannon remembers how it took over two years before the organisation saw any concessions from McDonald’s, but that Burger King and Wendy’s caved in much more rapidly. He believes that the ball is rolling ever faster: “Companies are waking up to the fact that consumers care about these issues. Our campaigns impact adversely on their sales figures and their stock prices and so force them to make changes.”
However, the figures show just how far PETA still has to go. Although same-store sales figures for the first twenty weeks of 2003 indicate a ten percent fall in KFC sales, the chain continues to open more restaurants and, since PETA launched its campaign on January 1, 2003, the share price of KFC’s parent, Yum Brands, has actually increased by nine percent. PETA’s campaign is yet to do any significant damage to KFC’s business. The experience of other fast food chains, and the current woes of McDonald’s, should make KFC very worried that the damage is imminent.