Chantelle Houghton: Ho, Ho, Faux – Don’t Buy Foie Gras
Christmas shoppers outside Fortnum & Mason’s Piccadilly store got a festive surprise today when Big Brother winner Chantelle Houghton, dressed in a seasonal red velvet robe, led a protest against the department store’s sale of foie gras. Our favourite socialite handed out free tins of deliciously decadent, cruelty-free faux gras to shoppers who signed PETA’s enormous Christmas card urging the department store to end its sale of a product so cruel that its production is illegal under UK law.
“I’m dreaming of a kind Christmas – one where foie gras is nothing but a ghost of Fortnum & Mason’s past”, said Chantelle. “As the signatures on our Christmas card will show, British shoppers know that this cruel product has no place on British shelves.”
In foie gras production, young geese are crammed into pens barely larger than they are, and 2 kilograms of grain and fat are pumped through pipes into the birds’ stomachs each day. Investigations on foie gras farms have documented dead and dying birds, some with holes in their necks from pipe injuries.
Houghton joins a long list of public figures – including Sir Roger Moore, Bill Oddie, Dame Vera Lynn, Ricky Gervais, Owain Yeoman, Carley Stenson, Jenny Seagrove and Twiggy – in speaking out against Fortnum & Mason’s continued sale of foie gras.
UPDATE: 10 February, 2021:
Following our decade-long campaign, high-end department store Fortnum & Mason has made the decision to stop selling cruelly produced foie gras. Read more about the victory here and sign our petition to urge the government to uphold the UK’s animal welfare standards by banning the importation and sale of foie gras:
