The Five Freedoms Ignored:
Tesco
Cruelty exposed
This photo is representative of the standard industrial farming practices permitted in the company’s supply chain.Photo: Andrew Skowron / We Animals
These are among the Five Freedoms that define humane treatment for farm animals – standards supported by more than 90% of the public.
These freedoms represent what consumers expect from food companies, and while many leading food manufacturers have put policies in place to uphold the Five Freedoms in their supply chain, Tesco continues to disregard these ethical benchmarks, selling sourced seafood from farms where animals endure unimaginable suffering.
From being packed into overcrowded, filthy waters where fish’s bodies can become riddled with deformities and open sores from sea lice and other irritants to being cut open while alive and fully conscious, Tesco is allowing brutal torture in order to save a few pennies per meal.
These inhumane practices can contribute directly to serious health risks for consumers.
Seafood from polluted or crowded farms is more likely to contain toxins or spread disease, putting consumers at risk. Poor conditions in industrial farms can also infect wild fish, increasing the chance of contaminated seafood entering the food supply.
It’s time for Tesco to put policies in place that end these cruel and unsafe practices and ensure the Five Freedoms for Animals.
Fish and crustaceans in Tesco’s supply chain can face a brutal existence.
At factory farm seafood facilities allowed in the company’s supply chain, animals can be packed into overcrowded, filthy waters where fish’s bodies can become riddled with deformities and open sores from sea lice and other irritants.
Disease is allowed to run rampant, with a large percentage of animals suffering to death from disease before even making it to slaughter.
Wild-caught fish in Tesco’s supply chain face similar cruelty. Tesco has no public policy prohibiting cruel and environmentally devastating capture methods from being used.
Methods such as trawling and longlining can kill large numbers of bycatch animals, damage local ecosystems, and lead to painful and prolonged suffering as animals linger for days jammed in nets or dangling on hooks.
The slaughter process is no less horrific. Tesco allows its seafood suppliers to kill animals in the most brutal ways possible, including cutting them open while alive and fully conscious, cooking them while alive and fully conscious, slowly asphyxiating them, or beating them to death.
Tesco has the power and responsibility to stop permitting these extreme cruelties in its supply chain. The public expects better, and animals deserve to live free from this egregious and unnecessary suffering.
It’s time for Tesco to do what many other leading supermarkets chains have already done and put policies in place that ensure the Five Freedoms for animals in its supply chain.
