PETA’S Giant Chicken On The Run In Leicester Square

For Immediate Release:
26 February 2003

Contact:
Sean Gifford 020 7357 9229, ext. 226 (office); 0773 457 9092 (mobile)
Dawn Carr 020 7357 9229, ext. 224 (office)

London – Holding signs reading, ‘The Colonel’s Secret Recipe: Live Scalding, Painful De-Beaking, Crippled Chickens’, and accompanied by a giant ‘chicken’ being chased and slaughtered by a ‘butcher’, members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will protest the abusive treatment of animals by KFC suppliers by passing out leaflets and showing graphic footage at a local KFC restaurant. The protest is part of an international campaign launched by PETA on January 7 after nearly two years of failed negotiations with KFC’s parent corporation, Yum! Brands.

Date: Thursday, 27 February

Time: 12 noon to 1 p.m.

Place: KFC, Leicester Square

PETA attempted to work with Yum! Brands executives for 21 months prior to the campaign launch, but despite assurances made long ago by Senior Vice President Jonathan Blum that KFC would ‘raise the bar’ on animal welfare, the company refuses to eliminate the worst abuses. The campaign follows victories over McDonald’s and Burger King − both of which bowed to PETA pressure to reduce cruel treatment of animals raised and slaughtered for food.

Among the improvements that PETA wants KFC to implement are the following: replacing crude and ineffective electric stunning and throat-slitting with gas killing; phasing out the forced rapid growth of chickens, which causes metabolic disorders and lameness; increasing the space allotted per bird; adding minimal enhancements, such as sheltered areas and perches and implementing automated chicken-catching, a process that reduces the high incidence of bruising, broken bones and stress associated with catching the birds by hand.

‘KFC stands for cruelty, in our book’, says Director of Campaigns for PETA Europe Sean Gifford. ‘Nearly 800 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.’

Protests are planned in cities throughout the world and have already begun across North America, Europe and Australia. For more information, please visit KFCCruelty.co.uk.