Butterball faces Thanksgiving Turkey boycott after PETA video resurfaces

Butterball is facing intense backlash after a nearly 20-year-old video resurfaced showing employees brutally abusing turkeys, sparking outrage online.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shared the old video on their Instagram with the caption: “Do you know what happened to your Butterball turkey before they were killed?” The post also encouraged followers to learn more about “Butterball’s House of Horrors,” referring to PETA’s undercover investigation at a slaughterhouse in Ozark, Arkansas.

The video shows a Butterball employee stomping on a bird’s head until its skull exploded, another swinging a turkey against a metal railing with such force that its spine popped out, and a third sticking his finger into a turkey’s vagina, according to the PETA survey.

PETA investigators uncovered these gruesome accounts from April 2006 to July 2006 at the factory, which slaughtered about 50,000 birds daily.

Outrage on social media

Many on social media are calling for a boycott of the brand as Thanksgiving approaches on Thursday.

“It was bad enough that your business (Butterball) is based on selling dead turkeys… should they be SA too?” comedian Corinne Fisher commented on Butterball’s Instagram post.

“May they face the suffering they have caused. Monsters are real, disguised in human form. Not all humans are the same – some embody true evil,” another user wrote.

“STOP ANIMAL CRUELTY,” actress Hilda Abrahamz also commented.

Another user said, “I threw away my butterball turkey and will never buy from you again.”

Why did the video reappear?

Newsweek contacted PETA to ask why it chose to revive the 18-year-old video.

“It was part of a pre-Thanksgiving-type party,” said Amber Canavan, PETA’s project manager for vegan campaigns. Newsweek. “Our ‘Thanksvegan’ campaign, as we call it, is a big thing that we do every year.”

Canavan continued: “It’s a prime time to get people thinking about the bird that’s going to be in the middle of their table. What people generally don’t want to think about is everything that happened to them and their parents to get them on that table.”

Butterball responded to Newsweek’s request for comment: “We are aware of a video from nearly 20 years ago that is being re-shared across social media. This video is not current and was recorded before Butterball became a private company and prior to our engagement and certification through American Humane Care and well-being are central to who we are as a company and we are committed to the ethical and responsible care of our flocks,” a Butterball spokesperson said in the statement.

“Eleven years ago, Butterball was the first, and remains the only, turkey company to become American Humane certified. This means we have annual third-party audits to ensure compliance with our 200+ science-based best practice standards for care of turkeys that far exceeds industry best practices We are proud of this designation, which no other turkey company can claim, and have a zero-tolerance policy toward animal cruelty,” the statement. continued.

American Humane Certified is a certification program that ensures that animals used in food production are treated according to specific welfare standards. It is given to farms, ranches and other facilities that meet humane treatment guidelines, which include the proper handling, living conditions and care of animals throughout their lives.

“We have challenged butterball for its American Humane Association certification,” Canavan said. “We actually filed an FTC complaint against them for the deceptive nature of these certifications and the marketing claims.”

She continued, “They put this label on that says ‘humanely raised,’ but they still raise them in conditions that are basically industry standard so they can mutilate these turkeys without pain relief.”

Canavan said Butterball isn’t the only company facing backlash over animal cruelty — Plainville Turkey Farms was under fire in 2021, resulting in a PETA investigation.

“We also found workers kicking birds around like footballs and mimicking sexual acts on them – things that were grossly abusive,” Canavan said. “The Plainville investigation actually resulted in charges against many of the workers.”

Plainville Turkey Farms is now permanently closed.

“If they think there’s nothing to hide behind what happens to the turkeys that they sell to the public, why don’t they have live-streaming cameras at their slaughterhouses? And I think we all know the answer,” Canavan said.

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