Sir Roger Moore Strikes Again: Harvey Nichols Takes Foie Gras Off Restaurant Menus
For Immediate Release:
17 November 2010
Contact:
Sandra Smiley 020 7357 9229, ext. 229; [email protected]
London – Harvey Nichols has become the latest business to commit to removing foie gras from its restaurant menus, including the celebrity favourite OXO Tower, following an appeal from Sir Roger Moore as well as meetings and correspondence with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The company had taken foie gras off store shelves after previous talks with PETA, but foie gras was still being served in its restaurants. The cruel product will be removed from restaurant menus in the New Year. Sir Roger Moore, who narrates PETA’s graphic foie gras video exposé, spearheads the group’s campaign against force-feeding ducks and geese to produce foie gras. The James Bond actor won PETA’s Person of the Year Award in 2009 for his work on behalf of ducks and geese and helped PETA convince Selfridges to drop foie gras. He is now joining PETA in appealing to Fortnum & Mason to reject the cruelly produced food.
“It’s absolutely splendid news that Harvey Nichols has taken my appeal and that of other caring people into consideration and will be pulling foie gras from its menus”, said Moore. “With British businesses like Harvey Nichols and Selfridges rejecting foie gras, I will now be turning my attention to a little shop in Piccadilly called Fortnum & Mason which PETA informs me is resistant to appeals for compassion for cruelly force-fed birds!”
In foie gras production, ducks and geese are force-fed several times a day for weeks until their livers expand to up to 10 times their normal size. Investigations at foie gras farms have documented sick, dead and dying birds, some with holes in their necks from pipe injuries. One investigation found that ducks with bloody beaks and twisted wings were crammed into small wire cages. Birds used in foie gras production often become severely depressed and sit shaking, no longer grooming themselves, out of fear, pain and the distension of their organs.
Foie gras production has been banned in the UK and more than a dozen other countries. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) pulled foie gras from the menu at its restaurant 195 Piccadilly and at all its events, and the Brit Awards did the same after complaints from both PETA and singer Leona Lewis. Prince Charles has banned foie gras from all menus at Royal residences, and all major British supermarkets refuse to sell foie gras in the UK.
Sir Roger Moore has also contacted numerous celebrity chefs and every member of the House of Commons about foie gras cruelty. Other celebrities who have supported PETA’s campaign to urge the British public to dump foie gras include Formula One heiress Tamara Ecclestone, Phil Collins, Kate Winslet (who has also narrated a PETA video showing the cruelty inherent in foie gras production) as well as the late Sir John Gielgud.
For more information and to watch the video footage, please visit PETA.org.uk.