Ithaca, NY – “Wegmans Cruelty”, a documentary detailing inhumane conditions at Wegmans Egg Farm in Wolcott, NY, will make its Cornell University premiere Wednesday evening. The film, released in July of last year, is based on investigations at the egg facility conducted by Rochester-based Compassionate Consumers. The student-run Cornell Coalition for Animal Defense (CCAD) is sponsoring the film screening.

Date: Wednesday, 8 March
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: 131 Warren Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

The film documents the egregiously cruel conditions in which Wegmans-brand eggs are produced. At the egg facility hens are crammed into barren, wire “battery cages” so small they can’t even spread a wing. At Wegmans’ company-owned, 750,000-hen egg facility investigators from Compassionate Consumers found hens covered with feces and open sores, living on top of their dead and dying cage-mates. Many hens had suffered painful beak mutilations, done only to prevent birds from pecking each other in this stressful environment.

In July of 2005 Compassionate Consumers released “Wegmans Cruelty” to show consumers the suffering that goes into every carton of Wegmans-brand eggs, and began urging them to pressure Wegmans to end the use of battery cages at its egg facility. Other food retailers have recently stopped selling battery cage eggs, including grocery giants Whole Foods and Wild Oats. In November, 2005, organic food chain Trader Joe's agreed to make its own brand of eggs cage-free. Battery cages are considered so cruel that they have been banned in many countries, including those comprising the entire European Union.

“If Wegmans treated dogs and cats the way it treats chickens its executives could be in jail on felony cruelty to animals charges,” said Nicole Matthews, Activist Liaison for Compassionate Consumers. “Because all of Wegmans-brand eggs come from its own company-owned and operated facility, it has the power to stop the suffering of 750,000 chickens today.”

CCAD will use the screening as the kickoff to a campus initiative, working to stop the use of battery cage eggs in Cornell dining halls. With this Cornell would join a growing list of schools—including Vassar College, American University, and the University of Rochester—that use only cage free eggs in food production.

Compassionate Consumers is a Rochester-based organization dedicated to providing the public with information about the treatment of animals on farms and at slaughter.

For more information visit www.WegmansCruelty.com

Contact: Ryan Merkley, (585) 410-0773, ryan@compassionateconsumers.org