Tesco Tortures Turtles
Viva!’s Response to Tesco’s Standard Letter

If you have contacted Tesco to voice your concern about them selling live turtles in China at their stores the chances are that you will have received a standard response from them. It is vital that we keep the pressure on them, and responding to this letter is a great way to do this.

Below we have put Tesco’s response (in bold) and we have systematically picked it apart. Tesco are hiding behind hyperbole and half truths, please help us make sure they don’t get away with (see overleaf for ways to contact Tesco).


We appreciate you are concerned about the animal welfare issues associated with the sale of turtles in China. So are we. That's why we commissioned independent research, considered the available academic evidence and have been in dialogue with the animal welfare charity Care for the Wild so that we can make progress on a sound basis.

As a result, we have made several significant improvements to the way turtles are sold in our stores.

… the reasons that Tesco commissioned research was because people like you have put pressure on them. If there had been no intervention from groups including Viva!, consumer pressure or press interest into what Tesco are doing to turtles in China it is unlikely that the situation would have changed.

Tesco no longer sell red-eared sliders because they now agree that this type of turtle cannot be killed humanely for human consumption. However, they are still selling the Chinese soft-shell turtle. This is despite the growing evidence that this type of turtle is equally difficult to kill humanely. Leading turtle expert Clifford Warwick told us that: “… Tesco are way off the mark with their ill-informed conclusion re soft-shelled turtles that: ‘...these turtles keep their heads out of the shell and can be beheaded easily...’. Not only is it not a simple matter to decapitate these turtles when their head is extended (because they are highly mobile, fast and elastic movers - often causing bit of the head to be chopped off) but also they commonly keep their head in, which they are very capable of doing! Further, crushing the hard skull is itself notoriously unpredictable. Added to that is the fact that even a few seconds for a decapitated head is a long time even if it were crushed completely and fairly quickly. Fish houses (which often handle turtles) in the US have many accounts of the problems with this method.”

Tesco are still using decapitation without pre-stunning (a method they could not use in this country). It is well known that, because of their slow metabolism, a turtle’s head can be conscious and suffering for up to an hour after it is separated from the body. Previously, in Tesco stores in China the turtle’s decapitated head would be allowed to suffer in agony in a bucket where it was discarded until he eventually died. Tesco have now admitted that this is unacceptable. However, incredibly their ‘answer’ to this problem is now to hit the decapitated head with a hammer until the animal is dead. As Clifford’s statement shows, not only is a ‘clean’ decapitation questionable, but also the hard skull and relatively small size of the animal’s head make this method literally hit or miss.

We are also developing a public awareness campaign to help consumers understand animal welfare and to provide advice on the best treatment of live turtles where customers choose to take them home.

Can you imagine the outcry if Tesco started selling live animals for customers to take home to kill in any way they pleased in this country? Whilst we welcome any efforts to promote animal welfare this is very much a half measure. Currently turtles are commonly killed by being boiled alive or having their shells prized open and their organs removed whilst they are still alive and conscious. There is no guarantee that Tesco customers in China will follow advice, and as already noted there are no humane ways to kill a turtle for human consumption. Subsequently, every turtle sold by Tesco in China will in all likelihood suffer a prolonged and agonising death. Tesco cannot wash its hands that easily.

This approach to animal welfare and the sale of live turtles, commissioning research, acting on it and educating customers, is unprecedented by any retailer operating in China and we hope that these actions will help to drive up standards throughout the supply chain.

Whilst we’re all for driving up standards, Tesco are operating well below the standards they operate by in the UK (and as most people know, farmed animals here routinely suffer appalling condition, on intensive farms). As Tesco’s profits are coming back to their shareholders in the UK they should operate to the very minimum British standards in their enterprises abroad.

Some organisations such as Care for the Wild and VIVA are now asking us to stop selling live turtles completely and you may agree with this demand. While we are committed to upholding the very important issue of animal welfare, we also need to balance different cultural attitudes, in this case respecting the different traditions, expectations and values on this issue that exists in China.

Turtles are a popular and traditional part of the Chinese diet and having addressed some important animal welfare concerns, we currently continue to sell live turtles in our stores in China.

Tesco try and make out that turtles are widely eaten in China. Actually, only two per cent of the entire Chinese population will buy a single turtle in a year. Clearly turtles are not eaten as widely as Tesco would have us believe. What is of concern, of course, is the fact that research has shown that wild turtle populations are in crisis. Tesco claim to farm (or ranch) turtles, but these farms are regularly supplemented with wild caught turtles to replenish breeding stock. This puts pressure on wild caught populations.

As we have seen in the UK, supermarkets operate a ‘pile them high – sell them cheap’ policy. By Tesco selling live turtles in China it is not responding to a demand, rather it is creating one. It is this promoting the ‘popularity’ of turtles that may drive them further into a crisis that they cannot recover from. The only ethical thing Tesco can do is withdraw from this trade and shame the other Western companies (USA’s Wal-Mart and France’s Carrefour) into following suit.


Complain to Tesco: Consumer power works, so let’s use it!

Freephone: 0800 505 555
Write: Sir Terry Leahy, Chief Executive Tesco, Tesco House, PO Box 44, Delamare Road, Cheshunt, Herts EN8 9SL
Email: customer.service@tesco.co.uk

Click here for the 1-click campaigner e-card to Tesco.