End Ikea's Reindeer Misery

On the run-up to Christmas, furniture giant Ikea is shockingly selling reindeer meat in many of its stores across the UK. Please help us stop them.

Viva! has contacted Ikea to express our concerns. Reindeer are herded with snowmobiles, motorcycles and even helipcopters, which causes a huge amount of stress to these gentle wild animals. The suffering can be so great that their muscles can literally waste away. Some face a gruelling journey of up to a thousand km to be slaughtered. Also, most are killed so young that they never even see the first snowfall of winter.

Read the national coverage our campaign has had in The Independent and The Telegraph.

Please complain to Ikea today and tell your friends and family so that they can, too!

Email the Ikea Press Office: pruk@memo.ikea.com

Live chat with customer services: http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/customer_service/contact_us/uk_web_chat.html

Phone Ikea London HQ: 020 8233 2300

Phone your local Ikea:

http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/customer_service/contact_us/call_us.html

Write:

Ikea Ltd HQ
255 North Circular Road
London, NW10 0JQ

"Dear Ikea

As a customer of Ikea, I was very disappointed to be informed that you are currently selling products containing reindeer meat in the UK. 

A report by scientists from the Division of Comparative Medicine, Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden shows that traditional methods of herding in the Nordic countries have given way to chasing reindeer with snowmobiles and motorcycles, as well as helicopters. I am very disturbed that Ikea has admitted this practice in the national press. This and lassoing them causes huge amount of stress for these wild animals.  They can become so distraught that their muscle can literally waste away.

Their misery doesn't end there. In Sweden, some reindeer face a gruelling journey of up to a thousand km to the slaughterhouse where they face anything but a humane end.

Another report from Food and Drink Europe states that 70 per cent of reindeer slaughtered for meat are calves that have never even seen the snow.

These are facts which I - and I'm sure your customers would - find upsetting, and ones that we would hope you will be concerned with.

Therefore, I am calling on Ikea to end the sale of reindeer meat in the UK.  We hope you will agree to this, otherwise I will be forced to take my custom on the run up to Christmas elsewhere.

Yours faithfully"