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Welcome to WegmansCruelty.com |
Wegmans still supports battery cage eggs Wegmans still sells eggs from its former egg facility, where hens are crowded into tiny, barren cages, allowing each hen less than half a square foot of space. These animals are forced to live in their own waste and on top of the corpses of their cage-mates. A team of investigators from Compassionate Consumers found hens at Wegmans Egg Farm with severe infections and suffering from extreme dehydration. Some hens were trapped in the mesh of their cages, and others were drowning in liquid manure.
The cruel battery cage system used to produce Wegmans brand eggs has been banned in the European Union, and many food service companies, universities, and national grocery chains such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats have pledged to no longer sell or use battery cage eggs. Please seek out alternatives to battery cage eggs, and ask Wegmans to work with The Humane Society of the United States to improve these inhumane conditions.
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A Message of Kindness at Warrington, PA Store Opening |
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 The Baltimore Animal Rights Coalition has teamed up with advocates in Warrington, PA for this weekend's grand opening of a Wegmans supermarket. The group plans to bake an egg-free cake and deliver it to the store manager. Wegmans probably wishes that every demonstration came with a tasty cake.
Animal advocates will attempt to find a way to a business's heart — through its stomach. At the grand opening of the new Wegmans grocery store Sunday, activists will object to the treatment of birds on Wegmans Egg Farm by delivering a cake to store manager Blaine Forkell. The cake will be decorated with a chicken and read "Blaine, Birds Dont Belong in Cages."
"Wegmans keeps up to nine birds in cages the size of a filing drawer, called battery cages," explains a local activist. "Conscientious consumers do not want to support production methods that involve cruelty to animals, and well attempt to deliver that message in a way that hits home."
Grassroots activists in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia have been campaigning for Wegmans to eliminate battery cages from its company owned and operated egg farm in upstate New York since September 2004, after the release of the documentary Wegmans Cruelty. Produced by Rochester, NY-based group Compassionate Consumers, the documentary shows birds living in cages so small they cannot spread their wings. Birds were found suffering from untreated and infected wounds, submerged in manure pits, and living in contact with feces and rotting corpses.
The activists, some of whom will travel from Virginia and Maryland for the grand opening, want Wegmans to develop a plan in agreement with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to eliminate battery cages from their egg farm. Wegmans would not be the first grocer to eliminate battery cages. Wild Oats and Whole Foods Markets have agreed to sell only cage-free eggs, and Trader Joe's has agreed to do so for its store brand eggs. All egg producers in the European Union have been mandated to eliminate battery cages by 2012. Wegmans has not responded to two letters from the HSUS.
A demonstration outside the store is also planned. The cake, the activists assure, does not contain eggs or any other animal products.
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