Animal Welfare Groups Unite to Demand End to Fortnum & Mason’s Foie Gras Sales
In the latest development in PETA’s foie gras campaign, other leading animal protection groups have joined our call for Fortnum & Mason to end its sale of the vile product. In a letter sent to the store’s new managing director, Ewan Venters, the groups voiced the opposition of their millions of supporters to the barbaric force-feeding of ducks and geese and refuted the store’s preposterous claim that less than 1 per cent of the population are opposed to foie gras. In fact, a 2007 poll conducted by Ipsos MORI and commissioned by the RSPCA showed that 63 per cent of the public support a ban on the sale of foie gras in the UK. The groups include the RSPCA, Compassion in World Farming, Animal Defenders International, Animal Aid, Viva!, Four Paws, One Kind, Save Me and the International Veterinary Society.
There is no way to produce foie gras humanely. Birds raised for foie gras are force-fed huge amounts of grain three to four times every day via a metal pipe that is rammed down their throats. The birds’ livers swell to up to 10 times their normal size, resulting in a disease known as “hepatic steatosis”. Their breathing can become laboured as their engorged livers press against their lungs, and they often experience difficulty walking, grooming and even drinking.
Last week, leading animal protection organisations met with members of the European Parliament in Brussels to call for an EU ban on the force-feeding of birds for foie gras production, which is already banned in the UK. It is allowed in just five European countries – including France – which is why Fortnum & Mason shamefully pays French farmers to force-feed geese on its behalf before importing their diseased livers into the UK to sell in its Piccadilly store.
View the letter here, then contact Fortnum & Mason Managing Director Ewan Venters today and tell him to follow the lead of Selfridges and Harvey Nichols by ending his store’s shameful support of this barbaric trade.
