Sir Roger Moore Places Ad In Busy Piccadilly Circus To Persuade Fortnum & Mason To Drop Foie Gras

For Immediate Release:
23 December 2010

Contact:
Sandra Smiley 020 7357 9229, ext 229; [email protected]

London – Having previously joined forces with PETA to persuade both Selfridges and Harvey Nichols to drop foie gras, Sir Roger Moore is at it once again – this time, he has turned his attention to Fortnum & Mason’s continued sale of the cruelly produced food. The revered British actor appears in a new PETA ad appealing to Fortnum & Mason to stop selling foie gras, a “fancy food” that he describes as “tasteless”. Moore is spearheading the campaign against foie gras because of the cruel methods that producers use to fatten the birds’ livers. The ad – which has gone up at the Piccadilly Circus Underground Station – is designed to catch the eye of Christmas shoppers. It shows Moore holding a sign reading, “Fortnum & Mason: Stop Selling Foie Gras”, and features the slogan “Force-Feeding Birds Is Cruel, Not Yule”.

“I look forward to hearing from PETA that Fortnum & Mason will stop selling foie gras”, Moore wrote in a letter to one of the company’s executives in early December. “Should I not, I will regrettably have to do my utmost to alert my family and friends and the public of your store’s unethical stance.”

Because Moore has yet to receive an assurance from Fortnum & Mason that the company will stop selling foie gras, he has kept his word and placed the advertisement to alert shoppers to the store’s shameful sale of a product that the government has deemed too cruel to produce in the UK. To create foie gras – French for “fatty liver” – up to two kilograms of mash are pumped into the stomachs of ducks and geese through a pipe two or three times a day. Birds used in foie gras production live in dark, crowded and filthy conditions, and they often become severely depressed, stop grooming themselves and sit shaking in fear and pain as their organs become increasingly distended. From birth to death, these birds are kept in tiny cages – they are never given the opportunity to swim or even simply stretch their wings.

Moore – who narrates PETA’s graphic video about foie gras production – has been joined by actors Kate Winslet and Joanna Lumley, who have both spoken out against the vile product. Prince Charles has banned foie gras from all Royal residences, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts as well as the Brit Awards have pulled foie gras from their event and restaurant menus and no major supermarkets will stock the cruelly produced food in the UK.

A copy of the ad, which has been placed at the Piccadilly Circus Underground Station.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.