Shut-Down Smithfield Foods: Abusive Pig Slaughterers Misleading the Public
Shut-Down Smithfield Foods: Abusive Pig Slaughterers Misleading the Public
The Issue
The Humane Society of the United States filed a complaint against Smithfield Foods, claiming the World's largest pork producer is misleading consumers and shareholders with a video series suggesting it does not abuse pigs.
Smithfield, which has won a “supplier sustainability” award from the restaurant chain, calls its pigs’ living conditions “ideal” and says it is “100% committed” to their care.
In the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the animal-rights organization says videos posted on the Smithfield, Va.-based company's corporate responsibility website, YouTube and other internet sites "are replete with false and/or misleading representations — both express and implied — about Smithfield's animal welfare and environmental practices."
Federal securities law prohibits companies from making false or misleading statements.
The Humane Society says the rosy picture painted in the video series contrasts sharply with the results of its own undercover investigation of a Smithfield facility in Virginia. In December, the organization released photos and video showing about 1,000 large female pigs crammed into gestation crates where they stay during their four-month pregnancies.
"Frustrated by this extreme confinement, some sows had bitten their bars so incessantly that blood from their mouths coated the fronts of their crates," the SEC filing says.
The investigation also uncovered other alleged abuses, including a pig being shot with a stun gun and tossed into a brash bin while still alive and prematurely born piglets falling through gestation crate grates and dying in manure pits.
"It was just three months after this investigation was conducted that Smithfield launched its video series praising its animal care practices," the SEC complaint says. "The documented footage from within the Murphy-Brown facility, however, was manifestly not a place that was `ideal' for pigs, that met their every need, or that demonstrated a `conscientious model' for the industry."
The filing also says Smithfield's videos fail to disclose that castrations and other painful medical procedures are performed on pigs without anesthesia, and that the footage shows "pristine housing conditions" for pigs that do not reflect typical conditions.
http://www.woodtv.com/dpps/news/national/south/va-farm-accused-of-pig-abuse-nt10-tvw_3679112#
Federal securities law prohibits companies from making false or misleading statements. Smithfield Foods has committed a crime, the only justice is to revoke licenses and shut them down.
The Issue
The Humane Society of the United States filed a complaint against Smithfield Foods, claiming the World's largest pork producer is misleading consumers and shareholders with a video series suggesting it does not abuse pigs.
Smithfield, which has won a “supplier sustainability” award from the restaurant chain, calls its pigs’ living conditions “ideal” and says it is “100% committed” to their care.
In the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the animal-rights organization says videos posted on the Smithfield, Va.-based company's corporate responsibility website, YouTube and other internet sites "are replete with false and/or misleading representations — both express and implied — about Smithfield's animal welfare and environmental practices."
Federal securities law prohibits companies from making false or misleading statements.
The Humane Society says the rosy picture painted in the video series contrasts sharply with the results of its own undercover investigation of a Smithfield facility in Virginia. In December, the organization released photos and video showing about 1,000 large female pigs crammed into gestation crates where they stay during their four-month pregnancies.
"Frustrated by this extreme confinement, some sows had bitten their bars so incessantly that blood from their mouths coated the fronts of their crates," the SEC filing says.
The investigation also uncovered other alleged abuses, including a pig being shot with a stun gun and tossed into a brash bin while still alive and prematurely born piglets falling through gestation crate grates and dying in manure pits.
"It was just three months after this investigation was conducted that Smithfield launched its video series praising its animal care practices," the SEC complaint says. "The documented footage from within the Murphy-Brown facility, however, was manifestly not a place that was `ideal' for pigs, that met their every need, or that demonstrated a `conscientious model' for the industry."
The filing also says Smithfield's videos fail to disclose that castrations and other painful medical procedures are performed on pigs without anesthesia, and that the footage shows "pristine housing conditions" for pigs that do not reflect typical conditions.
http://www.woodtv.com/dpps/news/national/south/va-farm-accused-of-pig-abuse-nt10-tvw_3679112#
Federal securities law prohibits companies from making false or misleading statements. Smithfield Foods has committed a crime, the only justice is to revoke licenses and shut them down.
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Petition created on November 7, 2011