PETA Calls Off Safeway Boycott

For Immediate Release:
May 15, 2002

Contact:
Bruce Friedrich
Jennifer Knox

First U.S. Grocery Chain Ever to Agree to Improve Lot of Farmed Animals

Norfolk, Va. — Today, following more than 100 demonstrations in all 20 states and four Canadian provinces where Safeway and its subsidiaries operate, PETA declared a moratorium on its boycott of Safeway. The company announced that it has agreed to PETA's demands to implement new minimum standards of animal welfare. Safeway becomes the first grocery chain in U.S. history to pledge to make much-needed improvements in the living and dying conditions of farmed animals. The $34 billion-a-year Fortune 50 company, including its six subsidiaries, follows the lead of fast-food chains McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's, which, bowing to PETA pressure, have now begun to hold their slaughterhouse suppliers accountable if they cause a high degree of animal suffering in certain specific areas.

PETA's agreement with Safeway includes:

• Immediate implementation of unannounced audits of Seaboard Farms in Oklahoma, a major supplier of pig meat, where a PETA undercover investigator videotaped screaming pigs being beaten, bludgeoned, and slammed to the floor. Safeway has pledged to cut off suppliers that fail audits.


• Implementation within six to 18 months of soon-to-be-released guidelines from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), which are expected to include unannounced inspections of slaughterhouses, animal-handling verification guidelines, increased cage space for laying hens, humane handling procedures for chickens in slaughterhouses, and refusal to buy from suppliers that starve chickens in order to induce an extra laying cycle.

PETA had planned to read a letter from actor Richard Pryor at the company's annual meeting tomorrow in San Ramon, Calif., criticizing the company's intransigence. Instead, PETA will praise Safeway's decisionmakers for the pledge. "We still feel that every package of chicken parts and pork chops in the supermarket represents animals' being hurt and killed, but Safeway's new pledge takes a bite out of the worst cruelties. Now, we're turning our attention to Safeway's top competitors, Kroger and Albertson's," says PETA Vegan Campaign Director Bruce Friedrich.