Trader Joe's: Drop Petaluma Poultry
Inside Petaluma Poultry's crowded factory farms, investigators found birds collapsed on the floor and stuck on their backs, unable to walk to food or water; birds with splayed legs; birds with open wounds; and infectious diseases that threaten public health. One factory farm had mortality rates more than double the industry standard. At the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse, investigators documented evidence of birds entering the scalding tank (which helps remove their feathers) while still conscious. These birds were scalded alive.
These abuses violate California animal cruelty laws and pose serious health risks to consumers. USDA records show Petaluma Poultry’s slaughterhouse has four times the national rate of campylobacter and salmonella.
Trader Joe’s CEO Bryan Paulbaum, please do the right thing for animals and your customers. Stop selling chickens from a known criminal animal abuser. Drop Petaluma Poultry.
Trader Joe's doesn't want you to know that the chickens they sell in their own packaging come from Perdue Foods, the fourth largest poultry producer in the U.S. Behind the humane-washed labels reading "free range" and "organic" lies a harsh reality.
The chickens raised and killed at Perdue's California subsidiary Petaluma Poultry spend their entire lives crowded inside filthy, industrial warehouses. Around 6 weeks old, while they are still just babies, they are loaded onto a truck by the thousands—crammed inside crates that are stacked on top of each other so that feces from the birds above rains down onto the birds below. They are trucked to the slaughterhouse, then hung upside-down and shackled to a fast-moving slaughter line. In the high-speed chaos, many birds are not properly stunned. Some of these birds are conscious when they enter the scalding tank and are boiled alive.
Trader Joe's knows about the cruelty at Perdue's Petaluma Poultry. They have received thousands of emails, calls, letters, and social media comments from compassionate people asking them to cut ties with Petaluma Poultry. There have also been protests at dozens of Trader Joe's stores nationwide, urging them to drop Petaluma Poultry. Yet, instead of dropping this cruel supplier, Trader Joe's is suing the messengers. They filed a lawsuit against Direct Action Everywhere in July of this year, seeking to stop the protests.
California law prohibits subjecting animals to “needless suffering” and “unnecessary cruelty,” yet that’s exactly what’s happening behind closed doors at Petaluma Poultry—and Trader Joe’s is complicit.
DxE animal cruelty investigator Zoe Rosenberg rescued four suffering birds from Petaluma Poultry’s slaughterhouse and brought them to get the medical care they urgently needed. Zoe now faces criminal charges and nearly 5 years in jail for her act of compassion. Her felony trial begins September 15, 2025, in Santa Rosa—and it highlights just how far Trader Joe’s and Petaluma Poultry are willing to go to silence whistleblowers and protect profits.
This is not right. Customers deserve honesty. Animals deserve protection.
Join us in calling on Trader Joe’s to drop Petaluma Poultry and stop profiting from animal cruelty and public deception.
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