News

McDonald's ends relationship with chicken supplier

A gruesome video appears to show operators of a Tennessee poultry farm abusing chickens.

August 31, 2015

McDonald's has cut ties with one of its chicken suppliers after an animal rights group obtained gruesome video footage that appears to show operators of the Tennessee poultry farm clubbing small and sickly birds to death, according to USAToday.

An investigator for activist group Mercy for Animals secretly recorded the video at T&S Farms in Dukedom, Tennessee. The video appears to show a man and woman at the farm pummeling the birds using a pole with a large spike attached to the end of it and also shows the workers standing on the birds heads and pulling their bodies to break their necks, according to the report.

The farm is a contractor for poultry producer Tyson Foods, which supplies chicken for McDonald’s, the second-biggest purchaser of poultry in the USA, the report stated.

Tyson’s spokesman Worth Sparkman told USAToday that the company was investigating the video, but "based on what we currently know, we are terminating the farmer’s contract to grow chickens for us."

Vandhana Bala, an attorney for Mercy for Animals, told USAToday, “The video was recorded recently by one of the group’s investigators who applied for a job at T&S and worked at the farm for about four weeks. During that time, she says the investigator witnessed more than 100 instances of abuse of the animals."

All birds grown at the farm, which has a capacity of more than 120,000 birds, were transported to Tyson's processing facility in Union City, Tenn., a plant dedicated to making Chicken McNuggets and other chicken products for McDonald's, according to the article.