Ash Join PETA Campaign Against Kfc

Rock Group Calls on KFC Chief to Improve Treatment of Chickens

For Immediate Release:

11 November 2004

Contact:
Fiona Pereira 020 7357 9229, extension 232

London – With their latest single “Renegade Cavalcade” due to shoot into the charts, Ash are about to begin a massive tour with their good friends The Darkness. Ash, once dubbed the “best new band in Britain”, have become the latest rockers to publicly back a campaign calling on KFC to improve the living and dying conditions of the chickens raised for its restaurants. The band signed a letter on behalf of PETA to KFC chief David Novak, taking him to task for the cruel treatment of birds that are killed for the fast-food chain.

The letter urges KFC to implement PETA’s recommended improvements in the treatment of its chickens. Undercover investigations into KFC suppliers in Germany, India, the US and Australia have turned up exactly the same abuses that were found in the UK: crippled chickens living in crowded, filthy conditions. The Sunday Mirror led a report on an investigation into a UK KFC supplier with the headline “Distressed and Dying in a Cramped Shed … Nobody Does Chicken Like KFC”.

PETA’s recommended changes are “based on the scientific work of KFC’s own animal welfare advisors and would eliminate only the worst abuses of these animals”, write the members of the band in their letter to Novak. 

Ash’s letter is the latest volley in PETA’s Kentucky Fried Cruelty Campaign. Other cool bands backing the campaign include Goldfinger, Good Charlotte, the Black Eyed Peas, Darkness lead singer Justin Hawkins and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. More than 2,000 protests against KFC have taken place in cities around the world.

“KFC stands for cruelty in our book”, says PETA Director Dawn Carr. “More than 750 million chickens are killed each year for KFC in the cruellest ways imaginable, yet KFC has refused to do anything whatsoever to eliminate the worst abuses that these animals suffer.”

For more information, please visit PETA’s edgy Web site for teens and 20-somethings, peta2.co.uk – which features exclusive interviews with bands such as Good Charlotte, Maroon 5, Atreyu and Morrissey. For great give-aways, up-to-the-minute alerts, bulletin boards, offbeat, downloadable screensavers and stencils and much, much more, check out peta2.co.uk!

A copy of the letter signed by Ash is available upon request.

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