February 13, 2012

McDonald’s Vows to Help End Use of Sow Crates

By STEPHANIE STROM

Published: February 13, 2012

The McDonald’s Corporation said on Monday that it would begin working with its pork suppliers to phase out the use of so-called gestational crates, the tiny stalls in which sows are housed while pregnant.

Animal rights advocates have singled out the crates, known as sow stalls, as inhumane, and several states have moved to ban or restrict their use not only in pork production but also in the production of eggs and veal.

“McDonald’s believes gestation stalls are not a sustainable production system for the future,” Dan Gorsky, senior vice president for supply chain management for McDonald’s North America, said in a statement. “There are alternatives we think are better for the welfare of sows.”

Mr. Gorsky noted that several of the company’s large suppliers, including Smithfield Farms and Cargill, have already begun reducing their use of the crates.

He said that McDonald’s had asked its pork suppliers to provide their plans for reducing reliance on sow stalls and that the company would assess those plans and announce what steps it might take in response in May.

The Humane Society of the United States has worked for the last decade to raise awareness of the problems caused by the use of restrictive crates in the meat and poultry industry. Several states, including Florida and California, have passed laws banning the use of restrictive crates in meat and egg production. The Humane Society has been in contact with McDonald’s over the years about the crate issue but had stepped up the intensity of its discussions over the last month, according to Wayne Pacelle, the society’s president.

The buying power of McDonald’s adds a significant new dimension to the war on the practice. “I would go so far as to say that while we’ve been able to pass laws against gestation crates that are very important, this announcement by McDonald’s today does more to put the writing on the wall for the pork industry than anything that’s happened previously,” said Paul Shapiro, senior director for farm animal protection at the Humane Society.

Burger King was the first large fast-food chain to reduce its purchases of pork produced in facilities that use gestation crates, taking that step in 2007 at the same time it began adding cage-free eggs to its supply chain, according to the Humane Society.

Before that, the celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck announced that he would stop serving foie gras, which is the liver of force-fed geese, and no longer buy veal, pork or eggs from producers that use restrictive crates.

At a little more than 2 feet by 7 feet, sow stalls are too small for a pregnant pig to turn around. Being confined in a stationary position for the four months of an average pregnancy leads to a variety of health problems, including urinary tract infections, weakened bone structures, overgrown hooves and mental stress, according to animal rights advocates. About 60 to 70 percent of five million breeding sows in the United States are kept in the crates.

In 2007, Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, pledged to end the use of gestation crates by 2017, a date it postponed during the economic downturn. The Humane Society then conducted an undercover investigation, releasing video of pigs in Smithfield’s stalls, and the company once again pledged to stop using the crates by 2017.

In January, Hormel Foods announced that it would match Smithfield’s pledge after the Humane Society released similar video of its operations.

My Comments: I couldn’t help but be reminded of the lifestyle trends we learned about in Chapter 5 while reading this article. Obviously McDonalds realizes it is getting some bad feedback from customers for treating their animals poorly so they have decided that it is worth it to change. It reminds me of our key term, environmentalism. The cruelty to animals that McDonalds previously had in place was resulting in people who cared about such issues to not eat at McDonalds which obviously is something the company does not want. Thus leading to the change.