Friend,
Employees beating pigs with paddles and electrical prods. Pigs unable to stand up on their own being dragged across the floor by hooks. A still-conscious pig hanging up-side-down from a hook on its way to slaughter. These are the horrors that a recent undercover video showed in an Austin slaughterhouse.
The Quality Pork Processors (QPP) Austin plant is a high-speed slaughterhouse that sends all of its pork to Hormel Foods, the maker of Spam and other popular processed meats. The recent video shot by a Compassion Over Killing investigator shows QPP employees treating pigs in the most horrific ways imaginable. Nishant was so disturbed by what he saw that he started a Care2 petition demanding that Hormel stop buying pork from QPP until they prove that they have changed their cruel ways. Will you sign his petition?
In addition to showing pigs shivering in fear and pain, the video shows the employees doing some things that could seriously threaten the safety of our food. There are shots of some pigs with pus-filled abscesses being sent down the line, while others were covered in feces. At one point in the video, an employee took a blood-soaked towel and threw it across the line at his coworker.
When the video first became public, QPP tried to dismiss critics and claim that all of the pigs were handled "appropriately." Due to public pressure and Hormel's demands, however, they have since changed their tune. QPP now has vowed to train their employees better and provide more oversight of their plant. But only time will tell if they follow through on their promises.
We need to make sure that QPP won't go back to business as usual once they are out of the spotlight. Please sign this petition demanding that Hormel stop buying pork from the Austin slaughterhouse until QPP shows concrete progress on their promised changes.
Hormel has been moved by public opinion on this issue already, so let's push them to take the next logical step in ensuring that QPP stops its cruel and unsafe behavior once and for all.
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