Investigation of “Food with Integrity” chain reveals factory farm cruelty

December 12, 2018, SAN FRANCISCO, CA – As seen on Facebook livestream, dozens of activists with the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) -- including Rachel Ziegler, a former Chipotle manager who investigated a company chicken supplier after growing suspicions about company animal welfare claims -- participated in a theatrical window-washing demonstration to call for increased transparency regarding how the animals Chipotle uses for meat are raised and treated.

The activists held signs with photos of  sick and injured chickens taken inside farms which supply to Chipotle.

Ziegler says despite Chipotle’s reputation as an animal welfare leader, the company sources from many of the same conventional factory farms as other restaurants; farms where chickens have been found starving and suffering from injury and illness, farms with thousands of chickens crammed in filthy industrial sheds. The activists say Chipotle conceals its supply chain from its customers.

Ziegler is also one of 58 activists arrested on multiple felony charges for attempting to provide care to sick and injured hens at a Petaluma factory farm on September 29. The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office has since filed seven felony charges against Ziegler, among others.

Activists including Ziegler say the charges are an abuse of the legal system intended to conceal systematic animal abuse at Chipotle and beyond, and will only embolden their continued demonstrations and investigatory work.

DxE’s work has been featured in The New York Times, ABC’s Nightline, and a viral Glenn Greenwald exposé, and DxE activists led the effort to ban fur products in San Francisco earlier this year. Activists have been subjected to FBI raids and felony prosecutions for investigatory work. Visit Direct Action Everywhere on Facebook and at directactioneverywhere.com. Follow us on Twitter @DxEverywhere.

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