Viva!’s Day of Action Against the Co-op:
Saturday May 21 2005

After chickens and turkeys, the animals intensively farmed in the greatest number in this country are ducks – more than 18 million went to slaughter last year, almost every single one raised on a factory farm. Viva! recently investigated a range of duck ‘farms’ in the UK and I can tell you that we filmed some of the most distressing scenes of animal suffering we have witnessed in this office for years. We are familiar with the squalor and horror of chicken and turkey broiler sheds, the filth, overcrowding and contempt for animals’ needs. Perhaps because we have all seen free, wild ducks, the images of filthy, infected, sick, lame and suffering ducks and ducklings in similar units seem somehow even more shocking. These animals, which have evolved to live and thrive in water, are denied any opportunity to follow that most basic behavioural need and spend their entire short lives on excrement-soaked litter instead of swimming, diving and feeding in fresh, running water. The heartrending evidence of their suffering is all too clear in the footage our investigators have obtained.

In the past, thanks to our supporters, Viva! has achieved real progress for animal welfare by persuading supermarkets to stop selling meat from de-beaked ducks. Our last Day of Action for ducks scored a tangible success when Marks & Spencer cleared their shelves of factory-farmed duck and congratulated us for being “A catalyst for change”. With your help, we are certain we can continue to win victories for ducks.

Some of the most disturbing scenes we filmed were at MFD Foods and Kerry Foods, the previous and current supplier respectively of, among others, the Co-op. As you know, the Co-op position themselves as an ‘ethical’, responsible retailer and profess to take great pride in their standards of animal welfare. The dreadful scenes we filmed at their suppliers give the lie to this image and we believe that the Co-op will be extremely sensitive to the embarrassment it will cause them.

That’s why we are staging a nationwide Day of Action on Saturday, May 21, in which Viva! supporters will distribute leaflets outside Co-op stores throughout the country. With specially printed leaflets, posters and comment cards, with hundreds of dedicated local campaigners, we have a great opportunity to show the secret suffering of factory-farmed ducks to the public and to exert real pressure on a business which places enormous value promoting its ethical image.