Michael Windsor
Over 200 major food brands have adopted the Better Chicken Commitment. What's stopping Costco from doing the same?
At The Humane League, we know that giant food companies subject animals to some of the worst cruelty imaginable. But until recently, most people never could have imagined how awfully chickens are treated under Costco’s watch.
In early February, The New York Times broke an undercover investigation from Mercy For Animals, exposing the horrible conditions that happen right under consumers’ noses.
The investigation found piles of dying animals, extreme overcrowding, floors covered in waste, and chickens with chemical burns—it couldn’t possibly be any worse. And yet, to Costco’s general counsel John Sullivan, these standards were “normal and uneventful activity.” In other words, these things are acceptable under Costco’s current standards. Judging by the response from Costco’s own members and fans, this animal cruelty is hardly “normal.”
For Costco, these cruelties are just the cost of doing business. The farm that was investigated was a part of Costco’s own vertical integration, meaning these poor standards are fully within Costco’s ability to improve. The conditions revealed in the investigation are truly shocking to anyone who is unfamiliar with chicken farming, but they are standard practices for companies like Costco that don't have meaningful animal welfare standards.
Click here to demand that Costco enact animal welfare standards to address this abuse.
![Costco image 1] (//images.ctfassets.net/ww1ie0z745y7/3qut8h8KSVolt5zdWDPQT1/558b5833536e7c03c3acff51be0a2f23/2021USChickenFarms-CostcoGeneral27-2.jpg) Image: Mercy For Animals
The chickens Costco sells were bred to grow so large, so quickly, that they suffer pain and, in some cases, premature death. Many chickens grow so heavy that they are unable to stand, which is why they're sitting down. Some have heart attacks because their organs can’t keep up with how fast they’re growing. The footage shows buckets and dumpsters of bodies just at a single farm.
A representative from Costco’s in-house poultry facility once said that 4-5% of chickens typically die within the first few weeks of hatching. With its suppliers raising 18 million chickens at once, that means that nearly a million birds from each generation will die and be thrown away because Costco won’t raise its standards beyond the industry minimum.
To make matters worse for the chickens, the barns were filthy and dark. Tens of thousands of chickens eating, drinking, and defecating in the same crowded space for weeks results in the floor being soaked in chicken waste. Because these exhausted and stressed chickens spend most of their time sitting, they suffer from chemical burns after sitting in this concentrated waste. Life for these chickens is one nightmare after another.
You don’t have to be passionate about protecting animals to recognize that these cruelties are unacceptable.
Consumers overwhelmingly agree that animal welfare is important, and have made their voices heard over the years. Over 200 major food brands have adopted the Better Chicken Commitment, a comprehensive welfare policy that would ban many of the practices allowed in Costco’s supply chain. If companies ranging from Burger King to Whole Foods Market to General Mills can make this commitment, why can’t Costco?
Please join us in demanding that Costco address this animal abuse once and for all.
